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As pharmaceutical companies rely more on sales representatives, reps say they need more training to help them in their jobs.

Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance have posted the largest increase since 1992, according to an annual survey of employer health benefit plans.

Everyone makes mistakes, but it's learning from them, and changing the way we do what we do, that make us successful.

Managed care medical directors named Philadelphia-based GlaxoSmithKline the top pharmaceutical company for overall service, according to the spring 2001 Managed Care Medical Director Promotional Audit from Newtown, PA-based Scott-Levin.

Thirteen editors of some of the world's most influential medical journals have announced that they will be developing new standards to address possible conflicts of interest between journal authors and third-party groups like drug companies and medical device manufacturers.

Government and industry have shown they can work together to deal with a national disaster.

Franklin Lakes, New Jersey-Merck’s pharmacy benefit arm, Merck-Medco, is under fire for switching patients to more expensive pharmaceuticals.

Efforts to craft a Medicare pharmacy benefit may be sidelined by repercussions from the September attack.

During the next few years of economic and political turbulence, the pharmaceutical industry should cut through the waves like a sturdy ship, creating very little disturbance to its occupants. Some rough water- a prescription drug benefit and generic competition for blockbuster products-is expected, but the industry's ability to expand its markets in a steadily aging population will drive continued growth.

Basel-A series of product approvals in recent weeks could go some way to compensate for setbacks in Novartis’ pipeline. The approvals came as the Swiss company reported healthy half-year figures and an 11 percent sales increase.

New York City—In response to the recent terrorist attack in its home city, Pfizer pledged nearly $10 million in aid.

PMs must be ready to speak to the media at a moment’s notice—and have something to say.

London-European cancer patients are losing out because current processes for reviewing treatments are "dire," says the Cancer Research Campaign.

Mumbai, India—The controversy over pharma companies’ incentives to pharmacists in India highlights just how competitive the Indian pharma industry has become.

Not only did Shakespeare know a great deal about human nature, he knew something about brand equity: a name has value. Four hundred years later, marketers grapple to understand the association between brands and profitability.

Menlo Park, California-Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance jumped 11 percent from spring 2000 to spring 2001-the biggest increase since 1992-and payers blame that huge spike on pharmaceutical expenditures.

"My father had some great sayings, and one of them was: 'Never do a deal that's not a good deal for the other guy.'" So remembers Donal Geaney, chairman and CEO of Ireland-based Elan. Geaney's new American colleague Daniel Welch, president of Elan Pharmaceuticals, smiles in agreement from the other side of the table.

I heard the first bird of the morning whistling to his lover. Their small wings owned the sky again while the people fled for cover.

Demands on physicians aren't just coming from reps.

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examines women's use of ambulatory medical care in 1997 and 1998, and finds that their care differs from men in many significant ways. Even excluding pregnancy-related visits, women were 33% more likely than men to visit a doctor, although this difference decreased with age. The rate of doctor visits for such reasons as annual examinations and preventive services was 100% higher for women than for men, and medication patterns differed significantly. Women were not only more likely to receive hormones, but also dramatically more likely to have an antidepressant prescribed.

What do you do when given only a small amount of time to detail your product?

The Washington-based Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America has filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging a new Florida law that seeks to offset a $214 million reduction in the state's Medicaid prescription drug budget by creating a new state Medicaid formulary.

Ah … the infamous work contact! As a pharmaceutical representative, and then as a district sales manager in the late '80s, I became intimately familiar with the practice of riding with your manager from both the passenger's and the driver's sides of the car.

Nurses can be powerful advocates.

A national survey of employers, released jointly by the Menlo Park, CA-based Kaiser Family Foundation and the Washington-based Health Research and Educational Trust, found that smaller employers (three to 199 employees) are significantly more likely than larger employers (200 or more employees) to support a person's right to sue a health plan, and are somewhat more likely to support the right to appeal a health plan's decision to an independent reviewer. Two-thirds (67%) of smaller employers express support for the right to sue a health plan, compared with 28% of larger employers. Eighty-six percent of smaller employers and 74% of larger employers support independent review. However, the survey found that support for both the right to sue and independent review decreases if employers are told that the cost of health insurance might increase as a result.

As policy makers struggle to devise a pharmacy benefit for Medicare patients, pressure mounts to impose spending limits on medications. In turn, consumer activists are challenging industry’s longtime claim that price controls will reduce investment in R&D for life-saving therapies.

For the past 20 years, the blockbuster model has dominated the pharmaceutical industry. It has generated tremendous value for companies and shareholders and will likely continue to do so well into the future. That business design matched Big Pharma's expansive product development and marketing investments with the ample supply of opportunities for benefiting large patient populations and allowed an unusually large number of players to succeed in the high-stakes game. Not all companies can continue to win that game, however, so new fields of competition will be needed.

Berlin-The German healthcare system is ailing, and politicians are too timid and inefficient to do anything about it, according to the Verband Forschender Arzneimittelhersteller (VFA), Germany’s pharmaceutical industry trade association.