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Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s took a hit from the Affordable Care Act during the second-quarter. The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer said its pharmacy business had reduced margins, which hurt earnings at the U.S. business. Much of that was due to fewer customers paying for drugs with cash, which has higher margins, said Greg Foran, head of Wal-Mart’s sprawling U.S. operations. Fewer cash payments reflect “a marketplace shift in which more customers are now benefitting from greater drug insurance coverage,” he said, during a pre-recorded earnings conference call. (Monga, 8/18)

With biotechnology drugs generating an estimated $60 billion in annual sales set to have lost patent protection by the end of next year, Medicare's plans to buy lower cost, copycat versions of the medicines are becoming a hot topic for patient advocacy groups and some in Congress, Administrators of the big health program are in the midst of staking out reimbursement policies for so-called biosimilars, with a 2016 payment rule for physicians serving as one of the chief vehicles. The Food and Drug Administration in March approved the first such product for sale in the United States: a Novartis AG copy of Amgen Inc.’s Neupogen, for helping people on chemotherapy fight infections. (Young, 8/18)

Amgen Inc. reached a $71 million settlement with 48 states related to allegations that the biotechnology company made unsubstantiated marketing claims about blockbuster drugs Aranesp and Enbrel, according to several state attorneys general. In a statement on Tuesday, Amgen said the settlement with the states resolves some of the same issues addressed in Amgen’s December 2012 settlement with the federal government related to the company’s marketing practices. (Stynes, 8/18)

Amgen Inc. has agreed to pay $71 million to settle allegations by 48 state attorneys general that it improperly marketed two of its blockbuster drugs. The agreement announced Tuesday brings an end to a difficult chapter in the history of the Thousand Oaks biotech, which pleaded guilty in 2012 to a federal criminal charge related to similar allegations and paid $762 million in criminal penalties and civil settlements. (Pfeifer, 8/18)