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Good science can’t be rushed, even when the lives of patients hang in the balance. But regulatory science, and its relationship to a drug’s commercial success or failure

The European Commission claims that Johnson & Johnson and Novartis may have breached European antitrust rules.

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2013 Oncology Practice Roundtable

This past week or so, with Obamacare’s start up less than a year away, we have been treated to several entertaining vignettes as the nation’s governors begin to wrestle with the realities of the new healthcare law.

At CBI’s 10th Annual Pharmaceutical Compliance Congress, Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, deputy assistant attorney general, consumer protection branch, civil division, at the US Department of Justice, said being compliant means understanding people, and their motivations.

The Office of Health Economics (OHE) has released a new study examining drug development costs over the past 30 years.

Monday, February 4, is World Cancer Day. Eli Lilly & Co., one of big Pharma’s biggest, has decided to give the moment its due with the launch of a new policy advocacy initiative to ensure that patients actually benefit from the flood of new oncology treatments now emerging from the industry’s research labs.

The much-discussed US v. Caronia case, which has raised questions about the Food and Drug Administration prosecution of pharma companies for making off-label product claims, doesn’t change very much, according to FDA’s top drug marketing enforcer.

2012 was a record year for patent settlements between branded pharma and generics companies.

In the dog-eat-dog world of federal deficit reduction, there seems to be one health-related spending cut with broad bi-partisan support: require drug companies to give the federal government “a better deal on medications for low-income people on Medicare.”

A new report from the Tufts Center for Study of Drug Development (CSDD), confirms that companion diagnostics are an important factor for pharma companies to consider when seeking reimbursement of their drugs.

A new international agreement to reduce mercury contamination of air and water was recently adopted by 140 countries, without a proposal that threatened to limit access to vaccines in much of the world.

Of the many issues involved with the actual implementation of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, aka, “Obamacare”, few are more intriguing to me than those that personally impact Members of Congress (MOCs).

Biopharmaceutical companies are touting their huge investment in R&D, which has filled the drug pipeline with more potential first-in-class medicines, including orphan drugs, personalized medicines and new therapies based on novel scientific strategies.

By 2018, the amount health insurers spend per person on specialty, or biologic drugs, will equal or surpass the amount spent on traditional products, according to a new report.

Over the last few years I’ve worked with pharma marketers trying to preach and teach the virtues of digital channels. It has been a thankless task, with bucket loads of blood, sweat, and tears of frustration.

Global consultancy Cegedim has released its latest survey on how and where big Pharma puts its promotional dollar.

Crowd sourcing is hardly new, not even for pharma. Pfizer launched the first ever clinical trial to recruit and communicate with patients entirely via the Internet in 2011.

A survey of 600 patient groups worldwide conducted in late 2012 revealed that perceptions of the pharmaceutical industry soured in the past year, mainly due to issues of access, pricing, patient safety and transparency.

The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development (CSDD) sees two key trends as increasingly important for pharmaceutical companies to maintain success:

On average, cancer docs in the US would much rather deal with pharma sales reps in person as opposed to online, and drug companies are hiring more reps to support a slew of newly approved oncologic drugs.

The perennial fat got chewed during the first two days at J.P. Morgan’s annual healthcare conference – buy back stock or raise dividends? – and the usual suspects lurked, but newcomers like Walgreens and not-so-pharma companies like Life Technologies packed the presentation halls and corridors,

30 years ago last week, the US Orphan Drug Act came into being, and with it, a door of possibilities opened up for patients with literally thousands of untreated diseases.

Coming out of the blizzard of patent expirations, 2012’s total drug approvals climbed to 39, the greatest number from the FDA since 1996.

In its new study on pharma market growth in Africa, IMS Health highlights three ‘rising star’ countries from the continent’s sub-Saharan region.

2013 e-media kit