Regulatory and Washington

ATLANTA — The number of adult smokers who had used electronic cigarettes more than doubled in the space of a year, according to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Pharmacy benefit managers are becoming increasingly adept at leveraging the power of generics to save client healthcare dollars and improve their own standing, reports indicated.

"The opportunity for lowering costs by promoting generics over brands has never been greater, given the unprecedented number of drugs set to lose patent protection over the next few years," noted the "2012 Towers Watson/National Business Group on Health Employer Survey on Purchasing Value in Health Care."

NEW YORK — The Electronic Retailing Self-Regulation Program on Monday recommended that Lunada Biomedical discontinue weight-loss and other claims made for Amberen, a dietary supplement marketed to menopausal women. ERSP found, however, the company could support claims related to hot flashes, irritability, sleeplessness and “low libido.”

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The National Community Pharmacists Association on Wednesday commended a bipartisan push for the Government Accountability Office to review the impact on patients of sharp reductions in reimbursement for diabetes test supplies provided by community pharmacies to Medicare beneficiaries. 

LANSING, Mich. — The federal government has recognized the state of Michigan as a national leader in electronic prescribing, a group of health organizations in the state said.

The Michigan Health Information Network said that the Office of the National Coordinator for health information technology had commended it, recognizing that 94% of pharmacies in the state are equipped for e-prescribing.

NEW YORK — Drug maker Ranbaxy Labs has started producing the ingredients for a cholesterol drug while working with the Food and Drug Administration to fix manufacturing issues that led to the recall in November 2012 of several batches of the drug.

The Indian drug maker said it had initiated corrective and preventive actions, or CAPA, as it prepared to resume supplies of generic atorvastatin calcium tablets to the U.S. market. The drug is a generic version of Pfizer's Lipitor, and Ranbaxy became the first company to market a generic version in November 2011.

WASHINGTON — Former surgeon general C. Everett Koop died Monday. He was 96.

Koop, who served as surgeon general from January 1982 to October 1989, was outspoken about the damaging health effects of smoking and also an early advocate of educating Americans about AIDS. In 1988, he released "Understanding AIDS," a U.S. Public Health Service brochure based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, which was sent to 107 million households.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A newly conducted study of millions of Medicare Part D prescription drug event data has found that community pharmacies provide 90-day medication supplies at lower cost than mail-order pharmacies and that local pharmacists substitute lower-cost generic drugs more often when compared with mail-order pharmacies.