INSIGHTS AND PERSPECTIVES

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals on Tuesday announced it is working with the March of Dimes and television personality Vanessa Minnillo on a public health message to help educate all women of reproductive age about the importance of folate and folic acid through a national educational campaign called Girlfriends for Folate.

DailyCandy.com also has committed to engaging its extensive membership of women to help spread the word about daily folate supplementation, Bayer said.

PITTSBURGH — Patients that opt to fill their prescriptions through a $4 generic program could help garner societal savings of nearly $6 billion, a new study found.

NEW YORK — While several drugs to treat Type 2 diabetes are on the market, researchers have found that the best first-line option is metformin.

Led by Wendy Bennett, an assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, researchers reviewed 140 trials and 26 observational studies of head-to-head comparisons of monotherapy or combination therapy that reported intermediate or long-term clinical outcomes or harms of six oral diabetes medications.

CHICAGO — Most consumers believe that aging gracefully is genetic but also believe that such factors as diet, exercise and sunscreen play an important role in warding off the signs of aging, according to recent Mintel research.

The research firm found that 69% of consumers believed that how you age is mostly genetic. Eight-out-of-10 consumers also thought that diet and exercise are the most important factors associated with aging skin, and 78% believed that using sunscreen is the real key to preventing visible signs of aging.

WASHINGTON — A study published last week in Nutrition Journal found that dietary supplement usage and patient recommendations were common for physicians across several medical specialties, including dermatology, cardiology and orthopedics.

WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT — A lot was made of Walgreens' sale of its pharmacy benefit management business to focus on its stores and the other parts of its business, with some analysts and pundits suggesting CVS should or might soon follow suit. Whether or not CVS Caremark decides to do the same remains to be seen, but it certainly isn't the foregone conclusion some have suggested it might be.

WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT’S IMPORTANT — Joe Magnacca brings to bear a menagerie of merchandising savvy that will help Walgreens on its way to well. That savvy includes some "old world" retailing perspective by way of Canada’s Shoppers Drug Mart, where a focus on beauty and convenience is paramount. And his recent meteoric rise through the ranks of Duane Reade is testament to just how well he connected with the denizens of the most-populated city in the United States through enhanced merchandising and marketing.

WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT’S IMPORTANT — Sugar and chalk. That’s what Pfizer researchers found in a pill that was supposed to be Cytotec but was, in fact, a crude knock-off seized from a counterfeit drug lab in Peru.

(THE NEWS: '60 Minutes' examines drug counterfeit problem. For the full story, click here)