Global

UK agency takes the heat for slow evaluations and failing to consider societal benefits of new drugs

The first wealth is health, wrote American thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson. Indeed, history has taught us (even before Emerson) that health and wealth are inextricably linked-the more money one has, the healthier one is likely to be.

Says Roche UK CEO John Melville: "There is little difference in the incidence of cancer, in broad terms, across Europe, but cancer survival is very different"

Stakeholders worry that less competition among drug suppliers in the United Kingdom could mean higher prices and a bigger bill for the National Health Service

The UK has benefited from the stem-cell debate in the US. Several scientists have fled to Europe's more favorable regulatory stance.

A new European collaboration of biotech, pharma, academia, and government takes up the challenge of boosting R&D.

One health insurance company in The Netherlands is offering doctors a financial incentive to prescribe generic statins and proton pump inhibitors. Doctors and patients complained, but a court upheld the practice.

Serious offenders of the new Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry's Code of Practice can be "named and shamed" with adverts in the trade press. Details of breaches by companies will be posted online.

Traders say parallel distribution of drugs generates savings for patients. Industry says it creates more profits for traders, leaving pharma with less R&D funding.