Pharmacists and telemedicine: an innovative model fulfilling Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The lack of access to safe medicines and quality healthcare services in peri-urban and rural areas is a major challenge driving a health system to innovate new models of care. This commentary will discuss the implementation and impact of the “Guddi baji” tele-pharmacy model, a project piloted by doctHERs, one of Pakistan’s leading telemedicine organizations. This innovative model has described the reintegration of women into the workforce by leveraging technology to improve the level of primary health care services and contributes to safe medication practice in a remote area. Our intervention proposed the deployment of technology-enabled, female frontline health workers known as the Guddi baji (meaning The Good Sister) in a rural village. They serve as an “access point to health care” that is linked to a remotely located health care professional; a licensed doctor or a pharmacist within this model

The Fourth Industrial Revolution: Will it change pharmacy practice?

The industrial world is at the beginning of a Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). This era will radically change the human use of technology, with major implications for the ways people live and work. This commentary asks: will 4IR change pharmacy practice? The first three revolutions created the pharmaceutical industry and gave pharmacists a near-monopoly over drug supply. 4IR could do the opposite and create alternative, non-pharmaceutical means of treating patients as well reducing the involvement in medicines supply. If the pharmacy sector becomes stuck in traditional, linear thinking that assumes the future will be an extension of the past, then the fourth revolution may be less of an opportunity and more of a threat. The sector faces the "innovator's dilemma" when responding to 4IR. Should the pharmacy profession disrupt their current activities in order to: (i) do things better, (ii) do new things, and (iii) deter competition? To maintain its position in the medical marketplace, pharmacy needs to discover how to work with AI, robotics, IoT, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing. If the new game is understood, pharmacists may become the playmaster of tomorrow. If not, then the practice of pharmacy may be replaced by innovative new ways of meeting patient pharmaceutical needs

Pharmacy practice research priorities during the COVID-19 pandemic: Recommendations of a panel of experts convened by FIP Pharmacy Practice Research Special Interest Group

Across the globe, pharmacists on the frontline continue to fight COVID-19 and its continuously evolving physical, mental, and economic consequences armed by their knowledge, professionalism, and dedication. Their need for credible scientific evidence to inform their practice has never been more urgent. Despite the exponentially increasing number of publications since the start of the pandemic, questions remain unanswered, and more are created, than have been resolved by the increasing number of publications. A panel of leading journal editors was convened by the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) Pharmacy Practice Research Special Interest Group to discuss the current status of COVID-19 related research, provide their recommendations, and identify focal points for pharmacy practice, social pharmacy, and education research moving forward. Key priorities identified spanned a wide range of topics, reflecting the need for good quality research to inform practice and education. The panel insisted that a foundation in theory and use of rigorous methods should continue forming the basis of inquiry and its resultant papers, regardless of topic area. From assessing the clinical and cost effectiveness of COVID-19 therapies and vaccines to assessing different models of pharmaceutical services and education delivery, these priorities will ensure that our practice is informed by the best quality scientific evidence at this very challenging time

Pharmaceutical Policy Reforms to Regulate Drug Prices in Asia Pacific Region: The Case of Australia, China, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, and South Korea.

Medicine price directly affects affordability and access to medicines particularly in countries where a major portion of pharmaceutical spending is through out-of-pocket payment, such as in the Asia Pacific region. We have undertaken a detailed appraisal of the pharmaceutical policy reforms to regulate drug prices in 3 developed (Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea) and 3 emerging (China, India, and Malaysia) economies of the Asia Pacific region. Despite continuous efforts by the authorities in adopting a wide range of reformatory pharmaceutical pricing policies to ensure affordability of medicines, these policies may not be optimal where drug prices were not lowered as expected (eg, in Korea). On the contrary, considerable price reductions of various pharmaceuticals have been observed in New Zealand and India because of the reform in pharmaceutical pricing policy. This review of pharmaceutical pricing reforms reinforces the need for constant monitoring by policy makers in Asia Pacific countries to regulate drug prices and to undertake reform in pharmaceutical pricing policies when necessary to ensure affordability and access to medicines

Affordability assessment from a static to dynamic concept: A scenario�based assessment of cardiovascular medicines

The out�of�pocket payments for prescription medications can impose a financial burden on patients from low� and middle� incomes and who suffer from chronic diseases. The present study aims at evaluating the affordability of cardiovascular disease (CVD) medication in Iran. This includes measuring affordability through World Health Organization/Health Action International (WHO/HAI) methodology. In this method, affordability is characterized as the number of daysʹ wages of the lowest�paid unskilled government worker. The different medication therapy scenarios are defined in mono�and combination therapy approaches. This method adds on to WHO/HAI methodology to discover new approaches to affordability assessments. The results show the differences in the medicines affordability when different approaches are used in mono�and combination therapy between 6 main sub�therapeutic groups of CVD. It indicates the medicine affordability is not a static concept and it changes dynamically between CVD therapeutic subgroups when it used alone or in combination with other medicines regarding patients� characteristics and medical conditions. Hypertension and anti�arrhythmia therapeutic groups had the most non-affordability and hyperlipidemia had the most affordable medicines. Therefore, affordability can be considered as a dynamic concept, which not only affected by the medicine price but significantly affected by a patient�s characteristics, the number of medical conditions, and insurance coverage. © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Ward Identities, B-> \rho Form Factors and |V_ub|

The exclusive FCNC beauty semileptonic decay B-> \rho is studied using Ward identities in a general vector meson dominance framework, predicting vector meson couplings involved. The long distance contributions are discussed which results to obtain form factors and |V_ub|. A detailed comparison is given with other approaches.Comment: 30 pages+four postscript figures, an Appendix adde

First Observation of CP Violation in B0->D(*)CP h0 Decays by a Combined Time-Dependent Analysis of BaBar and Belle Data

We report a measurement of the time-dependent CP asymmetry of B0->D(*)CP h0 decays, where the light neutral hadron h0 is a pi0, eta or omega meson, and the neutral D meson is reconstructed in the CP eigenstates K+ K-, K0S pi0 or K0S omega. The measurement is performed combining the final data samples collected at the Y(4S) resonance by the BaBar and Belle experiments at the asymmetric-energy B factories PEP-II at SLAC and KEKB at KEK, respectively. The data samples contain ( 471 +/- 3 ) x 10^6 BB pairs recorded by the BaBar detector and ( 772 +/- 11 ) x 10^6, BB pairs recorded by the Belle detector. We measure the CP asymmetry parameters -eta_f S = +0.66 +/- 0.10 (stat.) +/- 0.06 (syst.) and C = -0.02 +/- 0.07 (stat.) +/- 0.03 (syst.). These results correspond to the first observation of CP violation in B0->D(*)CP h0 decays. The hypothesis of no mixing-induced CP violation is excluded in these decays at the level of 5.4 standard deviations.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letter

Branching fraction and form-factor shape measurements of exclusive charmless semileptonic B decays, and determination of |V_{ub}|

We report the results of a study of the exclusive charmless semileptonic decays, B^0 --> pi^- l^+ nu, B^+ --> pi^0 l^+ nu, B^+ --> omega l^+ nu, B^+ --> eta l^+ nu and B^+ --> eta^' l^+ nu, (l = e or mu) undertaken with approximately 462x10^6 B\bar{B} pairs collected at the Upsilon(4S) resonance with the BABAR detector. The analysis uses events in which the signal B decays are reconstructed with a loose neutrino reconstruction technique. We obtain partial branching fractions in several bins of q^2, the square of the momentum transferred to the lepton-neutrino pair, for B^0 --> pi^- l^+ nu, B^+ --> pi^0 l^+ nu, B^+ --> omega l^+ nu and B^+ --> eta l^+ nu. From these distributions, we extract the form-factor shapes f_+(q^2) and the total branching fractions BF(B^0 --> pi^- l^+ nu) = (1.45 +/- 0.04_{stat} +/- 0.06_{syst})x10^-4 (combined pi^- and pi^0 decay channels assuming isospin symmetry), BF(B^+ --> omega l^+ nu) = (1.19 +/- 0.16_{stat} +/- 0.09_{syst})x10^-4 and BF(B^+ --> eta l^+ nu) = (0.38 +/- 0.05_{stat} +/- 0.05_{syst})x10^-4. We also measure BF(B^+ --> eta^' l^+ nu) = (0.24 +/- 0.08_{stat} +/- 0.03_{syst})x10^-4. We obtain values for the magnitude of the CKM matrix element V_{ub} by direct comparison with three different QCD calculations in restricted q^2 ranges of B --> pi l^+ nu decays. From a simultaneous fit to the experimental data over the full q^2 range and the FNAL/MILC lattice QCD predictions, we obtain |V_{ub}| = (3.25 +/- 0.31)x10^-3, where the error is the combined experimental and theoretical uncertainty.Comment: 35 pages, 14 figures, submitted to PR

Observation of time-reversal violation in the B0 meson system

The individually named authors work collectively as The BABAR Collaboration. Copyright @ 2012 American Physical Society.Although CP violation in the B meson system has been well established by the B factories, there has been no direct observation of time-reversal violation. The decays of entangled neutral B mesons into definite flavor states (B0 or B¯¯¯0), and J/ψK0L or cc¯K0S final states (referred to as B+ or B−), allow comparisons between the probabilities of four pairs of T-conjugated transitions, for example, B¯¯¯0→B− and B−→B¯¯¯0, as a function of the time difference between the two B decays. Using 468×106 BB¯¯¯ pairs produced in Υ(4S) decays collected by the BABAR detector at SLAC, we measure T-violating parameters in the time evolution of neutral B mesons, yielding ΔS+T=−1.37±0.14(stat)±0.06(syst) and ΔS−T=1.17±0.18(stat)±0.11(syst). These nonzero results represent the first direct observation of T violation through the exchange of initial and final states in transitions that can only be connected by a T-symmetry transformation.DOE and NSF (USA), NSERC (Canada), CEA and CNRS-IN2P3 (France), BMBF and DFG(Germany), INFN (Italy), FOM (The Netherlands), NFR (Norway), MES (Russia), MINECO (Spain), STFC (United Kingdom). Individuals have received support from the Marie Curie EIF (European Union), the A. P. Sloan Foundation (USA) and the Binational Science Foundation (USA-Israel)