Pharmacy Today

Nixon accepts pharmaceutical industry’s offer to track pseudoephedrine sales

Gov. Jay Nixon announced today that a new computerized system will help combat methamphetamine labs by blocking illegal sales of a decongestant at the pharmacy counter.

Legislators passed a law in 2008 requiring pharmacies to report sales of pseudoephedrine products electronically, but the mandate was never funded. Pseudoephedrine is meth’s main ingredient.

The Consumer Healthcare Products Association, a trade association representing pharmaceutical companies that make the over-the-counter product, volunteered to pay for the system.

Nixon accepted the industry’s offer, saying it will allow pharmacists and law enforcement to determine at the point of sale whether a buyer has bought large amounts of pseudoephedrine at various stores to skirt the legal limits.

Nixon said the system would allow people who legitimately need the cold medicine to purchase it, but will block sales to people trying to build an inventory to make methamphetamine.

Jim Acquisto, Product Manager at Appriss Inc., the company building the database, said the system likely will be up and running in about 90 days, and will connect Missouri’s database to those in Kentucky, Illinois and Louisiana.

Kansas and Iowa likely will be the next states to link to Appriss’ system, called Nplex.

Pharmacists will enter the buyer’s name into the database and get an immediate record of how much pseudoephedrine the person has bought along with a record of where and when the purchases were made. If the new purchase would put the buyer above daily or monthly limits, the purchase will be denied.

A buyer who is denied would receive a receipt with Appriss’ phone number asking the person to call Appriss for an explanation of the denial. The system is also able to spot fake identification cards, flag multiple purchasers living at the same address and track other suspicious patterns.

Appriss also will provide free training to pharmacy staff on how to use the system as well as law enforcement personnel on how to track suspicious purchases.

Local police agencies in Missouri are skeptical the new system will have an impact. They point to Kentucky, which had an increase in meth labs during the database’s first year of operation. They say Kentucky’s experience shows that the electronic system doesn’t stop meth labs.

Instead, police in Missouri have lobbied for prescription laws, saying electronically tracking sales won’t stop meth addicts from paying others to buy boxes of pseudoephedrine for them or shopping in groups.

So far, eight local governments have passed prescription laws, including Washington, Union, Poplar Bluff, Gerald, Kennett, Eureka, Potosi, Jefferson County and Farmington.

Pharmacy students from Andhra Pradesh bag prizes for highest marks in D Pharm & B Pharm

Three pharmacy colleges in Andhra Pradesh were among the winners of awards given away during the 62nd Indian Pharmaceutical Congress held at Manipal from December 17 to 19, 2010. The KK Acharya Memorial Award was given away to S Prakash N Kumar who was declared a topper in D Pharm from Koringa College of Pharmacy in Andhra Pradesh.

Under the ML Khurana Medal category for the highest marks in B Pharma, R Ramakrishna from Acharya Nagarajuna University, Andhra Pradesh bagged the honours. In the category of highest grade in the course, Shyamali of Manipal Pharmaceutical Sciences received the prize.

The award for BV Patel Essay competition went to SS Manikiran of the Chalapati Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Andhra Pradesh. From the industry participant, the award went to Pramod R Parashuramkumar of Matrix Labs.

The Shroff Award 2010 was bagged by Gurumuthry Parathsarthy, Professor Pharmacy Practice, JSS College of Mysore.

The Indian Pharmaceutical Association instituted Eminent Pharmacist award went to Dr Prem Gupta, former Deputy Drugs Controller, government of India and current consultant for drug manufacturing for India and US-based companies.

Prof ML Khurana Award went to Praful Sheth, vice president, Federation of International Pharmacists (FIP).

The GP Srivatsava Award instituted by the Association of Pharmaceutical Teachers of India (APTI) went to D Ram Bhau, former professor, Kakatiya University in Andhra Pradesh and current advisor to Natco Pharma.

The Indian Pharmacy Graduate Association which instituted the KC Chaterjee Memorial Award went to SL Sobti, ex-deputy drugs controller, Govt of NCT of Delhi. The best drugs controller award instituted by the AIOCD went to Omprakash Advani, FDA Maharashtra.

All the awards included a cash prize, citation and a certificate.

Researchers discover human immune system has emergency backup plan

New research by scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences reveals that the immune system has an effective backup plan to protect the body from infection when the “master regulator” of the body’s innate immune system fails. The study appears in the December 19 online issue of the journal Nature Immunology.

The innate immune system defends the body against infections caused by bacteria and viruses, but also causes inflammation which, when uncontrolled, can contribute to chronic illnesses such as heart disease, arthritis, type 2 diabetes and cancer. A molecule known as nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) has been regarded as the “master regulator” of the body’s innate immune response, receiving signals of injury or infection and activating genes for microbial killing and inflammation.

Led by Michael Karin, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology, the UC San Diego team studied the immune function of laboratory mice in which genetic tools were used to block the pathway for NF-κB activation. While prevailing logic suggested these mice should be highly susceptible to bacterial infection, the researchers made the unexpected and counterintuitive discovery that NF-κB-deficient mice were able to clear bacteria that cause a skin infection even more quickly than normal mice.

“We discovered that loss of NF-κB caused mice to produce a potent immune-activating molecule known as interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β), which in turn stimulated their bone marrow to produce dramatically increased numbers of white blood cells known as neutrophils,” said Karin. Neutrophils are the body’s front-line defenders against infection, capable of swallowing and killing bacteria with a variety of natural antibiotic enzymes and proteases.

The new research demonstrates that the innate immune system deploys two effective strategies to deal with invasive bacterial infection, and that the IL-1β system provides an important safety net when NF-κB falls short.

“Having a backup system in place is critical given the diverse strategies that bacterial pathogens have evolved to avoid bacterial clearance,” said Victor Nizet, MD, professor of pediatrics and pharmacy, whose laboratory conducted the infectious challenge experiments in the study. “A number of bacteria are known to suppress pathways required for NF-κB activation, so IL-1β signaling could help us recognize and respond to these threats.”

While helpful in short-term defense against a severe bacterial infection, the dramatic increase in neutrophil counts seen in the NF-κB-deficient mice ultimately came at a cost. Over many weeks, these activated immune cells produced inflammation in multiple organs and led to the premature death of the animals. Long-term blockade of NF-κB signaling has been explored extensively by the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry as a strategy for anti-inflammatory or anti-cancer therapy, perhaps unaware of the risks suggested by this new research.

“One might contemplate adding a second inhibitor of IL-1β signaling to protect against the over-exuberant neutrophil response,” said Karin. “Unfortunately, loss of both the NF-κB pathway and the backup IL-1β pathway rendered the mice highly susceptible to invasive bacterial infection which they no longer cleared.”

Altogether, the UC San Diego research sheds new light on the complex and elegant regulatory pathways required for a highly effective innate immune system. The scientists noted that future investigations must take into account these interrelationships in order to design novel drugs against inflammatory diseases that achieve their treatment goals while minimizing the risk of infection.