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Did You Know? |
- Every year Americans have spent around $633.5 billion on medicines, and the U.S. pharmaceutical industry earned about $550 billion in annual revenue; projections indicate that the U.S. will spend around $635 billion on medications by 2025.
- As per WSJ, CVS Health and Cigna have charged $6,600 a month or more to insurance companies and patients
for Gleevec prescriptions, which went generic in 2016 and can be bought today for $55 a month; Cigna and CVSs prices were at least 100 times higher on average than roughly what the medicines manufacturers
charge. Across a selection of these so-called specialty generic drugs, Cigna and CVSs prices were at least 24 times higher on the average prices, UnitedHealth Group's prices were also 3.5 times as much.
- Target (TGT) sold its 1,660 pharmacy and around 80 clinic businesses to the drugstore chain CVS Health (CVS) for about $1.9 billion
in June 2015. The deal between Target and CVS Health made more than 1,660 pharmacies in Target stores be branded as CVS/pharmacy and added about 100 new CVS MinuteClinic in Target stores. This move also expanded the nation's second-largest
drugstore chain's retail presence to new cities like Seattle, Denver, and Salt Lake City.
- Pharmacies and drugstores have been around 2100 B.C. and Baghdad was home to some of the earliest drugstores, dating as far back as the 8th century.
Pennsylvania Hospital, which was considered as the first hospital pharmacy in America, was founded in 1751 by Dr. Thomas Bond and Benjamin Franklin "to care for the sick-poor and
insane who were wandering the streets of Philadelphia"; Benjamin Franklin can be considered as a founding father of pharmacy. In America, prior to early 1800s,
a pharmacist did not require to have a license. French immigrant Louis Dufilho Jr. of New Orleans became Americans first licensed pharmacist in 1816, he opened his
pharmacy in the French Quarter in 1823, making medicine and science accessible to a fast-growing city as it battled devastating disease.
- A search conducted by consumerreports.org with participants from 200 pharmacies throughout the U.S. to get prices on a months supply of five generic blockbuster drugs,
including Actos (pioglitazone), for diabetes; Lexapro (escitalopram), an antidepressant;
Lipitor (atorvastatin), for high cholesterol; Plavix (clopidogrel), a blood thinner; and
Singulair (montelukast), for asthma. As per the result, a whopping difference of 447 percent, between the highest- and lowest-priced stores. The Costco and
Healthwarehouse.com had very low prices, and CVS, Rite Aid, and Target had the highest retail prices. Costco had the lowest retail prices and
CVS had the highest prices for five widely prescribed generics.
- In the United States, pharmacists are regulated separately from physicians;
pharmacists cannot form business partnerships with physicians or give them "kickback" payments.
- In Asia, most countries allow doctors to dispense drugs themselves and the practice of pharmacy is sometimes integrated with
that of the physician, particularly in traditional Chinese medicine.
- The World Health Organization estimates that there are at least 2.6 million pharmacists and other pharmaceutical personnel worldwide.
- In the U.S. there are about 113,000 pharmacists in community
pharmacy (67,000 in pharmacy store chains; 46,000 in independent stores), 41,000 in hospitals, and 21,000 in government, academic, industry and others.
- It's predicted that employment of pharmacists will grow faster than the average for all occupations through 2018.
- In terms of honesty and ethics in professions: druggists/pharmacists: 72%; medical doctors: 67%, and nurses; 79%.
- Number of pharmacists in the US is around 230,000 with an average annual salary of $112,000 and a median bonus of $4,500. A pharmacist worked an average of 43 hours weekly.
- Pharmacists in urban and suburban settings made roughly $112,000, while pharmacists in rural pharmacies made about $110,500. Pay in pharmacies in the Southwest, Northwest, Southeast, Northeast, and the Midwest ranged between $104,000 (Midwest) to $115,500 (Southwest).
- Number of pharmacy technician working in retail pharmacies is around 182,000 with an average annual salary of $27,000.
- Pharmacists made approximately 150 million clarifying phone calls to physicians annually. More than half of calls related to drug concerns, and the rest is prescription handwritten issues and issues related to prescription changes or rework due to eligibility, formulary and similar benefits coverage-related activities.
- Educational requirements for pharmacists often included the choice of: a five-year Bachelor of Science in pharmacy (BS Pharmacy) or a six-year Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD). However, as of the year 2000, most schools of pharmacy began offering only the PharmD degree.
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