September 27 Pharmacy Week in Review: New Risk for Ovarian Cancer; Drone Deliveries; Updated ALS Treatment Guidelines

This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings, and more. Our Week in Review is a can't miss for the busy pharmacy professional.

Nicole Grassano, Host:

Hello and welcome to the Pharmacy Times News Network. I’m Nicole Grassano your host for our Pharmacy Week in Review.

Women who experienced 6 or more post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms were twice as likely to develop ovarian cancer compared with women who had never had any PTSD symptoms,Pharmacy Timesreported.

The study results, published inCancer Research, used data from the Nurses’ Health Study II, a longitudinal cohort study with more than 54,000 participants conducted between 1989 and 2015 with 26 years of follow-up.

Women were asked to identify the event they considered the most stressful and the year of this event. They were also asked about 7 PTSD symptoms that they may have experienced related to this event.

The researchers found that women who experienced 6 to 7 symptoms associated with PTSD had a significantly higher risk for ovarian cancer than women who had never been exposed to trauma. Women with trauma and 4 to 5 symptoms were also at an elevated risk, but it did not reach statistical significance.

Walgreens is set to be the first retailer in the United States to test on-demand drone delivery services by partnering with Wing Aviation LLC,Contemporary Clinicreported.

The drones are expected to deliver health and wellness products, in addition to beverage, convenience, and food items, and within minutes of ordering these via the Wing application. The service will begin to be offered to eligible residents of Christianburg, Virginia, starting in October.

Wing deliveries are already being used in Australia and Finland. Through their new partnership with Walgreens, both companies aim to explore together the possibilities of health and wellness product and retail delivery via drone.

Before the program launches, Walgreens and Wing Aviation will speak to Christiansburg residents to provide additional information about how the service could affect them. The companies will also host a demonstration for community members later in September.

The FDA has released updated guidelines surrounding ALS treatment in order to provide the industry with scientific thinking so that effective treatments with a favorable benefit to risk profile can be most efficiently developed, studied, and ultimately made available to patients,Specialty Pharmacy Timesreported.

The final guidance includes proposals to help advance the development of products for ALS patients, including recommendations on clinical trial design as well as ways to measure effectiveness.

Additionally, the document recommends that companies and researchers interact with the FDA early in product development so that the agency can best advise on the efficient design of trials and proposed development programs to produce the data needed for FDA approval.

The FDA also asked that companies developing treatments for ALS provide information about the status of their research and availability of products under expanded access or the Right to Try Act, so that caregivers, patients, and physicians can have informed discussions.

Pharmacists may get more questions about Ocrevus, if patients have seen a recent commercial for the prescription medication.

In the spot, called “Dear MS” the narrator says that Ocrevus is used just twice a year for adults with primary or relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis.

According to the commercial, Ocrevus is a bi-yearly medical treatment that is intended to reduce relapses for those who have been diagnosed with relapsing or primary progressive forms of MS.

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Thanks for watching our Pharmacy Week in Review. I’m Nicole Grassano at the Pharmacy Times News Network.