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Given the high volume of rep interactions with healthcare professionals, companies must work toward achieving a fully integrated system that collects data from across the entire enterprise.

Before a pharmaceutical company dispatches a sales rep to a medical practice, the marketing department learns some basic facts about the physician: how many new prescriptions she's written, how many refills, and how much upside prescribing growth she might generate. What the rep usually doesn't know: who else-nurse practitioners and physician assistants-prescribes medications in the office, at a nearby clinic, or sometimes in a separate practice just down the hall.

The newspapers seem shocked to learn that scientific journals occasionally publish things that aren't true. Where have they been?

Companies don't have the budget, but are being forced to do more active surveillance.

The high court’s decision on this licensing dispute could have far-reaching implications for patent negotiations, legal experts say.

An analysis of Merck’s clinical trial data for Singular (montelukast) indicates that obese people may respond to asthma treatments differently than lean people. A University of Michigan professor explains his recently published paper.

Thomson PharmaSM - Integration enhances communication

The door to growing vaccine proteins in plants is officially opened with a USDA-approved veterinary product. Is the FDA prepared for human vaccines grown in plants?

Generics supplement, September 2006. List of proposed content.

In 2004, US growth hormone sales reached nearly $711 million. But harsh restrictions on growth hormone treatments and their abuse as "lifestyle drugs" have injected controversy into the market. How can pharma ensure that its marketing efforts for products that help millions of children and adults reach the right targets?

As 2006 gets under way, changes in the industry are creating new opportunites for product managers, along with a landslide of challenges. Blockbuster drugs that represent 50 to 60 percent of pharmaceutical sales will come off patent in the next few years, and with consumer awareness now greater than ever, product managers need to work even harder to keep up. The articles in this volume address these growing concerns.

Imagine a person sitting alone in his living room suffering through a pounding migraine, while the rest of his family sits together around the kitchen table. He wants to join them, but his symptoms render him motionless. Now, imagine he has the choice to take two different drugs that promise to alleviate symptoms of his migraine. Drug A promises to help at the source of the problem by decreasing the frequency of swollen blood vessels around the brain, while drug B promises migraine-free days with more time to spend with the family. What do you think he would choose?

At the Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising, and Communications (DDMAC), our goal is to assure that prescription drug promotion is not false or misleading, and that it presents a balanced picture of a drug's risks, as well as its benefits.

Pharma companies spend the most money looking at what their competitors have already done. Here, three companies explain how competitive intelligence should work.

Attacking articles in medical journals, those ghostwritten by professional medical writers paid by pharmaceutical companies, is the media's latest attempt to taint anything supported, promoted, or approved by Big Pharma.

An entertaining Internet program that allows Americans to see where a dollar goes after they spend it, helped scientists develop a formula for how infectious diseases spread geographically in United States.

Upcoming competition, a weak pipeline, and existing marketing agreements limit the pool of prospective buyers, experts say.

Observing drug candidates in humans early in the development process could save investigators time and money, experts say.

Q&A with supply chain expert Prashant Yadav, lead investigator on a study of how to improve flu vaccine distribution.

Learn how RFID technology works and what it could mean for pharmacies down the road.

Two experts are split over the importance of research on a gene linked with a rare genetic type of Parkinson’s disease. One thinks it could hold the key to new treatment. The other thinks it is too rare to be relevant.

Q&A with Dr. Allan Brett, professor at the University of South Carolina and director of the General Internal Medicine division. He authored a recent perspective about on-demand Tamiflu prescriptions in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In order to increase production and lower the costs of making anthrax vaccines, a research team grew a protein from anthrax bacteria in tobacco leaves.

Often, post-approval marketing studies don't materialize because drug companies question their value. Independent review of the need for such studies would address pharma's concern that they may be warranted.

Big Pharma's hiring slowdown is not translating into a growing demand for contract sales organizations.

Witnessing an industry's wild ride is perhaps the best reason to work for a business magazine. You've given us 25 years of excitement. And we plan to pay you back.

There was a time when Merck was looked upon as the granddaddy of all pharma companies. As the self-proclaimed oldest pharmaceutical and chemical company in the world, people wanted to work at Merck for its sterling reputation, excellent products, and job security.