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In the midst of the hue and cry last week over the public release of individual Medicare payments to physicians, I was surprised to read that one of Medicare’s most costly medical services is - ophthalmology.

Overall, last year can be considered quite a successful one in terms of new product approvals.

Health IT is going through an era of both expansion and convergence, in which the universe of available information is growing exponentially.

We spend a lot of time focusing on what our advertising says to physicians, what our reps say to physicians, and what our websites and various other channels communicate to patients.

The European Medicines Agency is determined to minimize opposition to its next moves on releasing clinical trial data.

Pharma has operated the same way for 100 years, but the US healthcare model has changed completely in the last 30 years, for payers, pharmacists, hospitals, and even at the clinician level.

It was recently said, in reference to the UK’s Value-Based Assessment(VBA) program, that innovation had not been “tried and tested in the pricing context”.

Few would argue with the desirability of innovation - something new, something that delivers value.

In response to the recent shooting at Fort Hood that killed four (including the killer’s suicide) and wounded 16, the mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) views this and other recent incidents as a wake-up call to the dangers of antidepressants.

Cash-strapped states are shifting patients from traditional fee-for-service Medicaid coverage to managed Medicaid plans.

A report published yesterday provides recommendations for combating the “significant inequalities” affecting access to quality cancer care in Europe.

Monday’s decision by India’s Supreme Court to deny a patent for the top-selling oncologic drug Glivec took nearly a decade of litigation to resolve – but the implications in and beyond India are both immediate and lasting.

Since the early days of the internet, we’ve been busy creating websites and other digital channels.

The European Parliament yesterday voted towards the adoption of the new Clinical Trials Regulation.

A number of top management positions at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) need to be filled.

Patient adherence to medicine is the eternal puzzle for big Pharma: what combinations of financial incentives, personalized interventions, and just good information work best to push down that stubborn 50 per cent abandonment threshold after six months of treatment?

Recent Congressional investigations over the pricing scheme of Gilead’s much-heralded hepatitis C drug Sovaldi

In January 2013, FDA told manufacturers to lower the dose of zolpidem, the insomnia treatment, for women, and suggested a 10 mg to 5 mg for immediate-release products (Ambien, Edluar, and Zolpimist) and from 12.5 mg to 6.25 mg for extended-release products (Ambien CR).

Peter Houston looks at the pharma marketing takeaways from last week’s Digital Innovation Summit.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has finally published the formal consultation on value-based assessment (VBA).

With the introduction of every new technology, tactic, or gimmick comes what I call a tactical scrum. It’s like watching young kids play their first game of T-ball or soccer.

Adrian van den Hoven, Director General of the European Generics Association (EGA), this week called for the removal of barriers to generic medicines across the European Union.

A few weeks back I wrote on this blog about the need for CEOs to get social. I’m realistic, I know that the majority of CEOs still don’t engage directly in social media. Mostly it’s “the team” that does it, the marketing team, or the social media team, or the whole team. Great. Have you told them what rules they’re playing by?

Any complacency that the world of healthcare might be feeling about advances in the ability to treat patients suffered a head-on assault in Dublin, Ireland, last week, at a conference organized under the auspices of the Irish Presidency of the European Union and featuring a galaxy of Irish and European stars from the worlds of politics, regulation, research, industry and patients.

Either the doctor’s best friend or nightmare, the e-patient movement (the ‘e’ could stand for engaged or empowered) is here to stay and growing, writes Marylyn Donahue.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard arguments on the matter of pay-for-delay settlements between patent holders and generic firms.

As payers demand more evidence documenting medical product value, biopharma companies are responding by moving sooner to decide key clinical outcomes to measure.

An interactive training program designed “to help patient advocates better influence decisions related to access to new medicines” was launched today by Eli Lilly.