Corporations and Health Watch » Pharma | Corporations and Health Watch

How the Trans-Pacific Partnership Endangers Access to Medicine in Peru

klibman — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:41:55 +0000

The post How the Trans-Pacific Partnership Endangers Access to Medicine in Peru is from Corporations and Health Watch.

New Resource for Educating about Pharma Advertising

klibman — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:38:49 +0000

Pharmed Out, a Georgetown University Medical Center project that advances evidence-based prescribing and educates healthcare professionals about pharmaceutical marketing practices, has created a new set of drug ad resources that can be used to teach about pharmaceutical industry drug advertising tactics.

The post New Resource for Educating about Pharma Advertising is from Corporations and Health Watch.

New Study on Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives Finds Gaps in Patient Safety

klibman — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:12:31 +0000

A new study published online by the Journal of Internal General Medicine compared information provided by pharmaceutical sales representatives to primary care physicians in cities in Canada, France and the United States. “Minimally adequate safety information” did not differ in the US and Canadian sites, despite regulatory differences. In France, consistent with stricter standards, more harm information was provided. However, the authors found that in all sites, physicians were rarely informed about serious adverse events, raising questions about whether current approaches to regulation of sales representatives adequately protect patient health.

The post New Study on Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives Finds Gaps in Patient Safety is from Corporations and Health Watch.

Indian high court preserves access to low-cost medications

klibman — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 14:55:30 +0000

People in developing countries worldwide will continue to have access to low-cost copycat versions of drugs for diseases like H.I.V. and cancer, at least for a while, reports the New York Times. While advocates for the pharmaceutical industry argue that liberal rules on patents spur innovation, a growing number of countries are questioning why they should pay high prices for new drugs. Production of the generic drugs in India, the world’s biggest provider of cheap medicines, was ensured on Monday in a ruling by the Indian Supreme Court. Specifically, the decision allows Indian makers of generic drugs to continue making copycat versions of the drug Gleevec, used to treat forms of leukemia, which is made by Novartis. The ruling will also help India maintain its role as the world’s leading provider of inexpensive medicines. Gleevec, for example, can cost as much as $70,000 a year, while Indian generic versions cost about $2,500 a year.

The post Indian high court preserves access to low-cost medications is from Corporations and Health Watch.

Spending on drugs slows due to increased use of generics but new price increases loom

klibman — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 20:09:56 +0000

Spending on prescription drugs nationwide has been slowing for years, reports the New York Times, because of the increasingly widespread use of low-cost generics. But in 2012, something unheard-of happened: money spent on prescription drugs actually dropped. But some are warning that the ever-expanding use of generics has masked a growing problem for the government, insurers and others who pay the bill for prescription drugs: the rising cost of complex specialty medicines that treat cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and other diseases.

The post Spending on drugs slows due to increased use of generics but new price increases loom is from Corporations and Health Watch.

High court allows Amgen suit

klibman — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 19:42:09 +0000

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared the way for a securities-fraud lawsuit alleging Amgen Inc played down safety concerns about two drugs used to treat anemia. The court’s 6-3 decision, written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, affirmed a lower-court ruling that had certified the lawsuit to proceed as a class action. The suit, brought by Connecticut pension funds on behalf of purchasers of Amgen stock, alleged the Thousand Oaks, Calif., company repeatedly reassured investors about the safety of anemia drugs Aranesp and Epogen even as clinical trial data raised concerns that the drugs could harm cancer patients. Amgen’s statements led to inflated share prices, the suit alleged.

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Maker hid data about design flaw in hip implant, records show

klibman — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 22:26:02 +0000

Executives at Johnson & Johnson, the American multinational medical devices and pharmaceutical corporation, knew years before they recalled [the] troubled artificial hip in 2010 that it had a critical design flaw, The New York Times writes, but the company concealed that information from physicians and patients, according to internal documents disclosed on Friday during a trial related to the device’s failure.

The post Maker hid data about design flaw in hip implant, records show is from Corporations and Health Watch.

India hears appeal of compulsory license for cancer drug Sorafenib

klibman — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:17:02 +0000

India’s Intellectual Property Appellate Board is hearing Bayer’s appeal to the government’s compulsory license for patents on the drug Sorafenib (sold under the brand name Nexavar by Bayer). Used to treat kidney and liver cancer, the drug costs 2,800,000 rupees (USD 5,214) per patient per month and the generic costs 8,880 rupees (USD 165) per patient per month. The compulsory license was issued under Section 84 of the Patents Act, on the grounds that the invention was “not available to the public at a reasonably affordable price,” and therefore not reasonably worked in India. Read more

The post India hears appeal of compulsory license for cancer drug Sorafenib is from Corporations and Health Watch.

Drug companies find willing research partners on campus

klibman — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 15:45:08 +0000

In their quest for the next big drug discovery, reports the Springfield, Missouri News-Leader , pharmaceutical companies are increasingly teaming up with some of the nation’s top universities, recruiting campus scientists as partners and offering schools multimillion-dollar deals to work on experimental drugs in development. Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine criticized the pharmaceutical industry’s new coziness with major campuses. “What it does,” she said, “is to blur the boundaries between academic medical centers and investor-owned companies”.

The post Drug companies find willing research partners on campus is from Corporations and Health Watch.

Corporations need penalties that hurt

klibman — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 23:42:05 +0000

In the Los Angeles Times, Michael Hiltzik writes, “If you’re concerned about corporate crime, 2012 looked like a pretty successful year for the good guys.” The Thousand Oaks biotech giant Amgen paid $762 million in fines and penalties and pleaded guilty to a federal charge related to illegal marketing of its anemia drug Aranesp. Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline and Illinois-based Abbott Laboratories paid $3 billion and $1.5 billion in government penalties, respectively, in connection with their off-label promotions of blockbuster drugs. Glaxo’s was the biggest drug company settlement in history. To the companies, however, these big numbers are just chump change.

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