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According to the Washington-based National Committee for Quality Assurance's fourth annual State of Managed Care Quality report – an assessment of the industry's performance and the impact improvements will have on Americans' health – health maintenance organizations made their largest gains ever in 1999 in every region of the country and across every single clinical quality measure NCQA examines. The report, which is based on an analysis of health plan performance data from Quality Compass 2000, NCQA's database of managed care information, looks at data submitted by 466 health plans that cover some 51 million people. It also examines Americans' perceptions of managed care.

Washington Gov. Gary Locke unveiled a plan to help senior citizens purchase prescription drugs at lower costs.

Work toward credibility and compassion.

Become a resource to the doctor's staff.

According to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Washington, eleven former Food and Drug Administration commissioners - who have served presidents from Lyndon Johnson to Bill Clinton - have written to members of Congress that the reimportation of prescription drugs poses grave risks for American patients. Currently, there is legislation pending before a House and Senate conference committee that would allow the reimportation of pharmaceuticals from countries where they are sold at lower prices into the United States.

Presenting the right message to your audience.

Sen. John Ashcroft (R-MO) introduced new legislation that would make sure that cancer patients receive full access to drugs and cancer treatment services prescribed by physicians for the patients' recovery.

The Association of Managed Care Pharmacy, Alexandria, VA, has released the "Principles of a Sound Formulary," a set of guidelines the association hopes will be used by formulary decision-makers to "balance the healthcare quality and cost equation."

Texas Governor George W. Bush proposed state assistance programs to immediately provide prescription drugs to low-income seniors, in addition to long-term reforms to modernize Medicare. To pay for the plans, Governor Bush has set aside $48 billion in funding for state assistance programs and $110 billion in funding for Medicare modernization.

For John Lumley, who is in his 11th year as a sales rep in Johnstown, PA, for Janssen Pharmaceutica, working in a small town is challenging, but lends a valuable perspective on the personal aspects of selling. Without access to the events and programs available in metropolitan areas, he has learned to watch for unique opportunities to make contact with his physicians and take the time to get to know them as individuals.

The number of pharmaceutical company-sponsored physician meetings and events skyrocketed from 70,000 in 1993 to 280,000 in 1999, according to Newtown, PA-based Scott-Levin's Physician Meeting & Event Audit. Between 1998 and 1999, the number of events held for doctors jumped 25%.

I have been in pharmaceutical sales for less than a year, and the following are the things that I've learned.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal announced that he has filed a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Connecticut against four of Connecticut's largest managed care companies: Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Connecticut (and its parent, Anthem Health Plans Inc.), CIGNA HealthCare of Connecticut (and its parent, CIGNA Health Plans Inc.), Oxford Health Plans of Connecticut Inc. (and its parent, Oxford Health Plans Inc.) and Physicians' Health Services of Connecticut (and its parent, Foundation Health Systems Inc.).

What to focus on when it comes down to you.

A look at the most important breakthroughs of the last century.

A business plan and achievement log can help.

Decode Genetics, Reykjavik, Iceland, and Basel, Switzerland-based F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. announced that scientists at Decode have successfully mapped a novel gene that contributes to the occurrence of the common form of Alzheimer's disease.

A recently published House Government Reform Committee staff report criticized the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control for routinely allowing scientists with conflicts of interest to serve on two influential advisory committees that make recommendations on vaccine policy.

Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) and John McCain (R-AZ) have introduced the Greater Access to Affordable Pharmaceuticals Act, which, if passed, would modify the 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act to make it easier for generic drugs to enter the marketplace.

Question your way through opening, probing and closing.

In an effort to stimulate women's health research across a variety of disciplines, the National Institutes of Health announced that it will fund 11 awards to support development of new research in women's health. The program, Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health, seeks to increase the number of researchers working on women's health issues and to mentor junior researchers in an interdisciplinary scientific setting by pairing them with senior investigators.

The U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., has ruled in favor of Pomona, NY-based Barr Laboratories Inc.'s double patenting claim against the patents protecting Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co.'s Prozac® (fluoxetine HCl) anti-depressant. The decision strikes down the patent that would have expired in December 2003; however, the Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the lower court with respect to the expiration of the patent in February 2001.

A new study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine (vol. 15, no. 7) shows that samples handed out by pharmaceutical sales representatives may influence doctors to prescribe drugs they wouldn't have otherwise.

According to a new report by Washington-based Families USA, senior citizens can expect their drug prices to more than double in the next 10 years. The report is based on figures from the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, a household survey of about 12,000 elderly and disabled Medicare users.

Federal intellectual property protection laws have significantly delayed the entry of some generic drugs into the U.S. market, forcing consumers to incur billions of dollars in prescription drug costs that they otherwise might not have paid, according to an analysis released by the Washington-based National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation.

Applying the wisdom of emotion to sales.

There is a saying, "If you don't ask for it, you don't get it." In pharmaceutical sales, as well as most other sales jobs, this saying usually holds true.

Doctors are dishing more duties to physician assistants and nurse practitioners.

According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (vol. 97, no. 16), researchers at the Rochester, MN-based Mayo Clinic have identified premature aging in the immune systems of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. This finding reverses the earlier belief that these patients have overactive immune systems.

FDA says things haven't changed.