Given the extent of the meningitis outbreak linked to a compounding pharmacy in Massachusetts, new regulations for such pharmacies might be a good idea, but how to implement them remains uncertain.

(THE NEWS: Meningitis outbreak linked to compounding pharmacy spawns new proposed legislation. Click here to read the story.)

How can Congress plug the leaks in the pharmaceutical supply chain and dry up the stream of gray market drugs without making the current drug shortage even worse? And can federal regulators shut down gray market profiteers without limiting “the ability of pharmacies to take care of their patients?”

How do you squeeze water from a stone? That seems to be the goal of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in its long quest to cut prescription reimbursements for Medicaid patients by setting new, tighter payment caps for the community pharmacies that dispense those medicines.

An organization representing independent retail pharmacies is criticizing a new ad by a pharmacy benefit manager industry group, calling the ad "irresponsible."

More than 350 independent pharmacists will be rallying with legislators in the halls of Congress Wednesday to help communicate the value pharmacists contribute to health care and to advocate for specific legislative initiatives as part of the 2011 Legislative and Government Affairs Conference of the National Community Pharmacists Association.

The former top executive of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association may have gone to work for the National Community Pharmacists Association, but the generic drug industry trade group got one of the independent pharmacy group’s executives as well.

Maintaining a combative stance against the managed-care industry, the independent pharmacy lobby is urging the...