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Oncology-market access doesn’t “just happen” anymore. As competition in the U.S. health-care market only continues to intensify, oncology-drug companies will need a good corporate strategy to ensure physician uptake and payer coverage of therapies.

At last week’s Partnering for Cures conference held in New York City, several expert panels discussed new angles of approaching solutions to disease, encouraging investment and mitigating inefficiencies in the delivery of medicines within the current healthcare system.

The future of healthcare centers on scale, population health and the value of care rather than the volume of care, according to thought leaders speaking at a leadership briefing in November in Akron, Ohio. But the political atmosphere also adds layers of complexity, they say.

FDA is proposing to revise its rules to permit generic drug manufacturers to initiate safety labeling changes, and not wait until the brand company takes that action.

Health plans that limit drug converge will encourage consumers to obtain medicines illegally, according to pharmacy experts.

Orphan drugs were given short shrift in PharmExec’s 2014 Pipeline Report, but a couple of pipeline candidates targeting small populations did make the list, and are expected to earn big dollars in the next few years.

In the early 1990’s, during the debate over the Clinton healthcare plan, I recall sitting in an interesting meeting at my pharma company headquarters.

Long awaited details have been announced in the Heads of Agreement for the latest Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS). It’s worth a read in full (and you can find it here) but some highlights are set out here.

A Twitter (TWTR) IPO is imminent and looks likely to cement the social network’s future - good news for pharma marketers that increasingly see the network as an important place to engage HCPs and the public.

April might be – as T S Eliot suggested – the cruellest month, but for pharmaceuticals in Europe, October was certainly a contender to win an award as the busiest one.

The implosion of the Affordable Care Act’s vaunted healthcare.gov benefit enrollment process has obscured a far more critical issue for Big Pharma: how much leeway do companies have in promoting durable brand affiliations among the potentially millions of new patients with subsidized access to new medicines?

High prices, murky financial relations, and a reluctance to disclose clinical data are undermining public trust in industry and the research enterprise, writes Jill Wechsler.

Robert Hugin, Chairman of Celgene and PhRMA, talks about the challenges ahead for the industry organization

Europe moved one step closer to a passport for physicians in earlier this month. The European Parliament gave its backing to creating a virtual professional qualifications card that will allow doctors, pharmacists, and other professionals to practice in another EU country.

Reporter Glenn Greenwald, who has been in the news recently for disseminating the whistle-blower and former CIA employee Edward Snowden’s information on the US’s mass surveillance program has left The Guardian where his initial articles appeared

When Warren Buffet was ten, he made his first trip to NYC. What did he want to do? “See the Stock Exchange,” he told a news reporter on TV yesterday.

While buzz on Twitter will never outweigh critical data in a peer-reviewed publication, social media is becoming an important part of our industry’s dialogue. The oncology market is no exception, as insight gleaned from recent Twitter traffic and trends reveals.

Sophie Biernaux, VP & vaccine development leader, malaria and Joe Cohen, advisor malaria vaccine program, at GSK Vaccines at PhRMA?s Research and Hope Awards ceremonyon their innovative approach to vaccine development

A significant, though as yet not fully understood player in the launch of Obamacare is the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) industry.

Advances in health information technology and new federal financial incentives are fueling rapid growth in the use of electronic medical record (EMR) systems

Like the Super Bowl, pharma companies are winning major congresses by using competitive conference techniques to generate brand buzz and corporate recognition.

Compliance rules under the US Physician Payments Sunshine Act have been criticized for the excruciating level of detail demanded from individual company submissions.

The data-transparency bandwagon is rolling rapidly across Europe, energetically propelled by regulators, health campaigners, and generic manufacturers.

In health care, it is the lowly consumer who is now calling the shots, driving product and process innovation in areas ranging from electronic medical records [EMR] to retail health clinics.

Writing last week on this blog, Beth Bengtson, principal at healthcare marketing and communications company Hale Advisors, highlighted the problem posed for public health by Wikipedia.

George Mina, Pfizer's Director/TL-Data Strategy & Reconciliation-Transparency Medical Division - External Medical Communications, on the challenges of implementing the Physician Payment Sunshine Act for pharmaceutical companies

An increasing number of small biotech companies are being hatched to focus on a single disease or condition. The strategy goes against the diversified portfolio approach most big pharma companies have embraced, and instead puts all the eggs in one basket.

Another temporary casualty of the US government shutdown is the negotiation process surrounding the US and Europe’s free trade agreement.