Pharma Industry Archive

A “stealth pharma,” according to the folks at Pharmaceutical Executive, is any drug company that’s not a Big Pharma. In other words, it’s grab-bag of outfits that includes everything from specialty pharmas hawking retread drugs to biotechs to generics makers. Which, of course, makes them difficult to characterize. So it’s fascinating to see Bill Trombetta, a...

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Given the challenges facing Big Pharma — expiring patents, waning drug pipelines, the imploding blockbuster model, and increasing political pressure on its marketing practices — it’s hard not to wonder sometimes just who in their right minds would want to lead its giant but fragile companies over the next decade or two. Pharmaceutical Executive has an answer in its recent...

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So Pfizer apparently won’t be playing the spoiler in the Daiichi-Ranbaxy merger after all. Instead, CEO Jeff Kindler cut a deal with the Indian generics maker that will delay the introduction of generic Lipitor by about 20 months. Ranbaxy is now spared the cost and uncertainty involved in continuing to batter down Pfizer’s patent defenses, while Pfizer is guaranteed an additional...

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The saga of Avastin and Lucentis — two Genentech drugs used to treat a blinding condition called age-related macular degeneration, even though one is about 50 times cheaper than the other — is one of those stories that just gets better the longer it goes on. A quick recap: Avastin, a cancer drug, is biochemically very similar to Lucentis, which Genentech specifically developed to...

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Much as I suspected when I first wrote about Pfizer’s attempts to minimize potentially serious neurological side effects of its smoking-cessation drug Chantix, the drugmaker’s stonewalling tactics have simply made a bad situation worse. To wit: John Spangler, director of Tobacco Intervention Programs at Wake Forest University, told ABC News that Pfizer and the FDA ignored concerns...

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Chances are good that if you’re a drug-industry scientist, you already know Derek Lowe’s blog In the Pipeline, which often as not focuses on the complexities of chemical synthesis and research management. Even though he works at a lab bench, Lowe also has an excellent sense of what makes  pharmaceutical behemoths tick from a business perspective, and offers up an insider...

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Last last week, reports out of India suggested that Pfizer might make a hostile bid for generic-drug maker Ranbaxy Laboratories, which last week agreed to sell itself to Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo for roughly $4 billion. Pfizer may or may not actually try to bust up the Daiichi-Ranbaxy merger — it’s so far declined to comment. But if Pfizer does go down this path, it’ll be a...

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Japanese drugmakers are anxious to expand their presence in global pharma/biotech markets where they’ve long been largely shut out — and the strong yen is making it cheaper for them to basically buy their way in. Interestingly enough, some of these deals are bypassing the U.S. altogether. Unanswered is whether these deals will come close to achieving the twin goals of reviving...

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Last week, Pfizer held its promised “media roundtable” to address a rising chorus of concern about its anti-smoking drug Chantix. Reports from Pharmalot and the WSJ Health Blog suggest that Pfizer and its spokespeople offered exactly the kind of circle-the-wagons defense I’d predicted. From the WSJ blog, Pfizer’s main talking points included: Smoking is a serious health...

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Moody’s has never been the most cheerful of outfits — somehow its name seems particularly fitting — and its latest missive to the drug industry is perfectly in keeping with its dour, green-eyeshade image. In short, pharmaceutical makers need to brace themselves, because their credit problems are only going to get worse, according to the rating agency. I haven’t been able...

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