AmerisourceBergen is a member of the Alliance to Modernize
Prescribing Information (AMPI) – a group of pharmaceutical stakeholders with a
common interest in advancing regulatory or legislative reforms to facilitate
the dissemination of FDA-approved pharmaceutical labeling information via
modern digital platforms. For more information on the issue, please visit
AMPI’s website.
Annually, congressional appropriations legislation includes
language that prevents the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from
advancing a proposed 2014 regulation that would require pharmaceutical
prescribing information (PI) be delivered primarily by digital form instead of
paper. As a result, PI continues to be primarily distributed in paper format
which is often discarded as unnecessary. The FDA estimates that each year 90
billion pages of prescribing labels are discarded without even being used, and,
if they are used, they can be out of date by as much as one year. FDA’s proposed
regulation to modernize PI would improve the speed of labeling updates, and
thus the speed of patient care delivery; avoid potential negative impact to
patients; and reduce hundreds of millions of pounds of unnecessary paper waste
discarded each year.
AmerisourceBergen supports H.R.
7559, the Prescription Information Modernization Act, recently
introduced in Congress by Representatives Sherrill (D-NJ) and Curtis (R-UT).
H.R. 7559 would authorize the FDA to advance a proposed rule that would allow
for prescribing information provided by drug manufacturers to prescribers and
pharmacists to be transmitted electronically. Here
is a congressional press release related to the bipartisan legislation
which includes the following statement from the American Pharmacists
Association: “This legislation will give pharmacists access to real
time updates to reliable and trusted prescription drug information. This is
important for managing patients’ medications and contributing to safe
medication use”.