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The problem we see with the polarity of views is that both sides seem to be cranking up the extrapolation machine and use single studies/data points to draw broad conclusions to gin up opinions about ACA’s success or lack thereof.

At a time when Big Pharma is struggling with new business models geared to the demands of a changing marketplace, the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) is offering a way forward through voluntary licensing and patent deals that it insists will deliver what the drug majors say they want: more innovation; better market access; and the opportunity to demonstrate measurable improvements in public health. Is the MPP, as founding chair Phillipe Douste-Blazy claims, that “new business model for the future?”

It’s exciting times for patents in Europe. Not everyone’s excitement is pleasurable, but there’s certainly plenty going on, writes Reflector, Pharm Exec‘s EU correspondent.

During the Rutgers Business School’s annual healthcare symposium, an FDA official encouraged industry to put its drugs on the reviewing table and be prepared for good news.

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) International Vice-President Jay Taylor has expressed the organization’s concerns over the Office of the United States Trade Representative’s (USTR) 2013 Special 301 Report.

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A night of comedy in support of a chronic disease.

Just about every federal program and affected interest group is pressing for relief from the 8% across-the-board cuts in funding imposed by the budget sequestration mandate. Recent fast action on Capitol Hill to curb personnel furloughs of air traffic controllers by the Federal Aviation Administration, though, has spurred lobbying for similar treatment across many fronts.

The new National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) aims to provide patients and clinicians with useful information on treatment options and outcomes

The current UK measles outbreak reminds us that, as far as healthcare communication is concerned, the voice of the people is not necessarily the voice of God, writes Reflector.

You’d be forgiven for missing it with the vast array of new agencies and the policy documents, guidance, consultations and ‘engagement’ activity they’re doing on in the ‘new’ NHS in England, but on the 4th April NHS England (formerly the NHS Commissioning Board) set out 15 commissioning policies in 250 pages.

The Food and Drug Administration has come down on the side of reducing abuse of opoid medications, over encouraging wider availability of low-cost painkiller meds.

Forget digital differentiation and innovation. You need to be focusing on cross-channel ‘fusion’, writes Peter Houston.

Pharma, according to physicians currently embedded within Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), is not living up to its potential. A survey conducted by Oliver Wyman has most of its 200 respondents saying the industry could play a more active role with value-based healthcare providers in helping to deliver better care at a lower cost, but it does not and probably won’t, by most expectations.

Last week, Canada’s National Prescription Drug Utilization Information System (NPDUIS), a federal-provincial fact-finding panel that works closely with the Patented Medicines Prices Review Board (PMPRB), issued its fourth New Drug Pipeline Monitor (NDPM) looking at drugs currently under development that may have an impact on future drug expenditures.

England’s Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) could be in its final financial year, after running in full since April 2011. The fund covers the cost of cancer treatments either when NICE has said ‘no’, or hasn’t yet come to a view.

Editorial Advisory Board member Les Funtleyder expands on his comments to the 2013 Pharm Exec Dealmakers Roundtable with some advice on how early stage companies can build their best case to accredited investors - get all your ducks in a row at once with good documentation and make foolproof trial design and implementation the center of your pitch.

There seems no end to demands for data on clinical research, conflicts of interest, company payments, and drug prices.

Improving brand adherence rates requires pharma marketers to have access to two growing bodies of knowledge. These are: 1) carefully evaluated evidence for what can improve brand revenue, and 2) informed forecasts of trends.

They write 92% of their prescriptions without consulting a physician and are often the first provider a patient sees, and yet nurse practitioners, physician’s assistants and other non-physician prescribers (NPPs) are still somehow overlooked by pharma as an opportunity to drive sales.

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To read the March cover story in the PharmExec digital edition, click here.

Last week, the United States Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Britain’s Chief Medical Officer issued separate warnings about the urgent problem of antibiotic resistance in infectious diseases.

The greatly feared federal budget sequestration mandate went into effect March 1, and, initially, the impact was fairly muted.

The Office of Prescription Drug Promotion (OPDP) is reorganizing its two primary advertising review divisions – professional and consumer – in an attempt to stay in line with the silo-breaking, multi-channel promotional output pouring in from pharma.

Finding the right people for the right job might seem an afterthought for big Pharma companies that have cut their US workforce by more than 250,000 in the past 10 years.

One of 2012’s biggest buzzwords was “Gamification” and that probably means that in 2013 there are a lot of people trying to sell you on the value of gamifying your pharma business.

If a patient or physician encounters pharma-created content that doesn’t pop with relevance or utility, it doesn’t matter how multitudinous the channels are that carry it.