All News

Companies are poised to speed up investments in electronic data capture.

Senate report suggests drug makers have too much influence on CME content.

Allergan launches celebrity campaign for Botox and Juvederm.

PE Ad Readership Study

Activist protests steal thunder from Abbott's shareholder meeting.

Pricey merger adds expertise in vaccines, biologics.

May 2007 CE

The top 50 pharmaceutical companies, ranked by prescription pharmaceutical drug sales, plus rankings of top products, R&D spend, and more.

The lights were hot, the cameras were flashing, and the B-list celebrities were out in full force for the New York premiere of InnerState, an hour-long documentary following the lives of three individuals who are using biologic drugs to combat different diseases.

In march, us rep. rahm "Mr. Television" Emanuel (D-IL) reintroduced legislation aimed at what he calls "driving down the price of prescription drugs." But the only thing such legislation would accomplish would be the "driving down" of pharmaceutical innovation.

Pharma industry alliances are increasingly critical to success. They are gaining on R&D in terms of importance, especially since many companies are falling short in their internal pipelines and need to look outside for promising compounds. Today, nearly two-thirds of the top 20 pharma and biotech companies have established alliance-management functions. These usually cover deals in the discovery, development, and marketing space.

The reauthorization of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) comes but once every five years. Set to expire September 30-and with congressional Democrats riding high and consumer confidence in drug safety at record lows-the deal by which pharma pays FDA to review its products is in for a long hot summer of debate.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard the word crisis used to describe the healthcare system of one country or another, I would be rich. And with the '08 elections revving up, we can expect to hear a crisis chorus from many presidential and congressional candidates wise to the fact that healthcare often ranks as voters' No. 1 issue.

The push is on to establish an approval pathway for generic versions of biotech therapies. The Hatch-Waxman Act of 1984 established a process whereby generic-drug manufacturers could obtain approval for a product based on the innovator company's data. But Hatch-Waxman doesn't apply to biologics regulated by the Public Health Service Act, and generics makers-as well as some Big Pharma companies and small biotech firms-want Congress to give the Food and Drug Administration authority to set up a similar process for these products as well.

Back in 2003, Roche resolved a long-standing lawsuit with Igen International by acquiring the company. As part of the deal, Roche acquired a perpetual license to use the Igen technology that gave rise to the lawsuit-electrochemiluminescence (ECL)-in certain applications. Igen's ECL patents, meanwhile, were assigned to a new publicly held spin-off company focusing on biosecurity testing, clinical point-of-care products, and vaccines. In March, Roche announced that it was acquiring the spin-off, Maryland-based BioVeris, for $21.50 per share, or a total of about $600 million.

It's not always obvious just who is reponsible for the various steps of pharmacovigilance.

Over the past 20 years, drug companies went from having carte blanche to set drug prices to operating in an ever more tightly controlled environment. Instead of doctors calling the shots, government and private payers are becoming increasingly vocal about which drugs they will and will not cover. Frustrated patients, in turn, are getting anxious about their out-of-pocket costs and access to the medicines they need.

With legislation pending in Congress, generics makers begin investments in follow-on protein drugs.

PharmRep Subscriber Kit

Class action suits across the country challenge firms to pay overtime.

Promising drugs failed to deliver at this year's American College of Cardiology meeting.

High-profile, quick-growing IBS drug shelved because of cardio risks.

New technology could revolutionize meningitis strategy in the developing world.

PHARM EXEC ASIA PACIFIC MEDIA KIT

April 2007 CE

Despite efforts to increase diversity, the stark reality is that today's leading pharmaceutical companies are still run by men.

The acquisition of Eczacibasi's generic unit gives Zentiva a sales force of more than 500, manufacturing capacity of more than 400 million dosage units per year, and entry into the rapidly growing Turkish pharma market.

If the uk's office of fair trading (OFT) is to be believed, Brits are overpaying for their medicines to the tune of ?500 million a year. That's the conclusion the OFT came to in its long-awaited report on the Pharmaceutical Pricing Regulation Scheme (PPRS), the arcane method by which drug prices are set in the United Kingdom.

Value-based medicine is tremendously helpful if you've got a good drug. It could guide R&D, price decisions, and marketing. But most companies don't have all the clear winners.