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During his fifth State of the Union address, President Obama struck many familiar chords – including a line about ending certain subsidies to pharmaceutical companies – and emphasized, repeatedly, the need to get things done on the policy front.

With the recent release of the Patient Protection Sunshine Act (PPSA), the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has established reporting requirements to ensure that drug manufacturers properly disclose payments to physicians in areas of research, continuing medical education, etc.

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

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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,

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Who Lost Syria?

Thankfully, the civil war is not a public relations issue for Big Pharma, but the long-term business implications for the Middle East region are cagey.

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2013 may be a number associated with the fate of the luckless, but our annual review of the business and policy environment for Big Pharma suggests otherwise-as we near the midway point in the "tween" decade, there is good fortune in store for those with the perspective that comes with the long view.