All News

20 July 2009

Pain medications containing propoxyphene could lead to overdose and death, according to new labeling mandated by FDA. However, public requests to take these drugs (including Darvon and Darvocet) off the market have been denied.

08 July 2009

Sanofi-Aventis is banking that its highly anticipated atrial fibrillation/flutter treatment Multaq will be a huge success. The path to approval has been ridden with a failed trial and a very long review process, but for Sanofi, the wait has been worth it.

Biopharmaceutical companies generally try to avoid paying royalties on novel technologies, including novel expression systems, in part because of the inability to predict revenue flow after a product is commercialized. But even when a new expression system could significantly reduce cost, many remain hesitant. Despite this, adopting new technologies continues to be fundamental to improving product quality and cost.

In the long run, pharma wants to sell health, not just drugs.

As FDA looks to balance risks and benefits, more regulations are on the horizon.

Increasingly, pharma companies are expanding from brand vs. brand to battle at the franchise, portfolio, and corporate levels.

Oscient trims 180 sales, marketing, and corporate jobs in the wake of patent expirations, generic competition.

In an effort to learn as more about epilepsy sufferers, UCB will implement a social network that allows patients to communicate about their disease state and treatments. Think of it as one giant, online clinical trial.

Feds claim results of study comparing car crash deaths and children on ADHD drugs were not paramount to pulling kids off of ADHD treatments.

12 June 2009

The Word Health Organization just bumped the H1N1 influenza to pandemic alert phase 6 (the highest alert level), making it the first worldwide pandemic in 41 years.

What do you do when you are introducing a new drug in an already crowded category? Wyeth queried depression sufferers to find out what they want to see in a drug ad before launching its new DTC campaign for Pristiq.

GlaxoSmithKline is expanding its influenza vaccine efforts through a joint R&D alliance with Shenzhen Neptunus. The goal: to tap the world’s biggest market and attempt to deliver flu shots to more than a billion people.

The pharmaceutical industry distributes more than $22 billion worth of medication samples in the US alone. It's time to revisit the issue of waste inherent in this marketing strategy.

One of the fastest growing segments in the industry, specialty pharmaceuticals are proving tough to track for most companies-creating critical gaps in the supply chain view that can distort strategic planning and impact competitive advantage.

2008?2010

4 June 2009

Due to pharma's voluntary moratorium on doling out totefuls of freebies and all the lattes you can swallow, thousands of docs, researchers, and reporters had only their sleep-deprived selves to carry from data dump to data dump at this week?s American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual confab in Orlando, Florida.

GlaxoSmithKline has entered into a collaboration deal with Concert to create drugs using deuterium-“heavy hydrogen”-that can be gathered from seawater and used to alter the way molecules perform in the body.

The feds green lit a task force charged with easing the flow of communication between FDA, pharma companies, and the general public. While the team is being billed as a task force for transparency, it?s still unclear what is being revealed.

What can change is what advertisers depict in many of the DTC ads for serious health-threatening conditions: the happy patient.

Virtually all pharmaceutical manufacturers have robust policies to place needed medicines in the hands of those who cannot afford to pay for them.

To help make the most out of a client's marketing spend, the preferred method is to utilize hard data, such as new patient starts, or prescription movement.

Agency Confidential interrogated 21 executives at top healthcare agencies to find out the skinny on what is really happening with pharma marketing and advertising at this dire time for the industry. Here is the report.

At the end of the day you have tribes, some frequently not on the same "brand" page.