Pharma Industry Archive

Eli Lilly CEO John Lechleiter has done a spectacular about-face on the issue of disclosing the drug company’s payments to doctors. Last week he was against it. Today he’s suddenly in favor of it. Let’s be clear, Lechleiter is doing the right thing by creating “an online registry of physician payments in 2009″ that will disclose which docs are taking money from the...

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There was a behind-the-scenes drama at the Pharma Competitive Intelligence conference in New Jersey last week involving allegations that the organizer of the conference engaged in “misappropriation of company assets” and that subpoenas have been sent to Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi-Aventis, Merck, Novartis, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. But a close look reveals that the...

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Eli Lilly CEO John Lechleiter (pictured) has joined the bizarre political pantomime surrounding the new Massachusetts law requiring drug companies to detail the payments they make to doctors. He told the Boston Business Journal: Life sciences investment will be scared away … [the law has the potential to] subject doctors, hospitals and academic institutions to complex financial disclosure...

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About 1,000 sales reps are being let go from Schering-Plough this week. That’s on top of 60 animal health reps also being fired. Roughly 5,500 employees in general are being axed in Schering-Plough’s cost-cutting drive. If you’re one of those people, comfort yourself with the fact that CEO Fred Hassan’s stewardship hasn’t been bad for everyone — especially if...

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After burning $2.8 billion, Pfizer is throwing yet more money on the inhaled insulin bonfire. The company’s announcement that it has a deal to switch former Exubera patients to MannKind’s TechnoSphere is a real head-scratcher. One unanswered question is, exactly how many Exubera patients are there? Pfizer recorded Exubera’s revenue in the third quarter of 2007 at only $4...

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GlaxoSmithKline’s announcement yesterday that it is submitting a new drug application for Solzira to the FDA for the treatment of Restless Legs Syndrome raises a question: What was wrong with its old treatment for RLS, Requip, launched only in 2005? The short answer is that it was destroyed, in part by an association with gambling addiction, but mostly when it went generic. GSK reported...

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The FDA delivered to Cephalon a letter yesterday saying it would not approve expanded indications for its pain drug Fentora until the company gave it more information on how it would prevent the drug from being abused. Even though the Fentora situation is fixable, it’s just the sort of headache that Cephalon doesn’t need right now. On paper, the company is doing great. Revenues were...

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In King Pharmaceuticals‘ allegedly hostile takeover attempt of AlPharma, the target company is utilizing what I like to call the Ashley Dupre (pictured) strategy: It’s saying, Yes, you can have me, but I don’t come cheap. I say “allegedly hostile” because AlPharma has made it clear from the get-go that it is happy to be acquired at the right price. The business...

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GlaxoSmithKline appointed Ellen Strahlman as it’s new chief medical officer, and a perceptive post over at IN VIVO discusses the meaning of the move. (That’s her LinkedIn photo.) Her previous job was as Pfizer’s vp licensing and worldwide business Development. IN VIVO asks: With so many top brass at GSK — including now the CMO — trained to look for products...

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For years, drug companies have tried to expand the range of prescriptions of sleeping pills. They’re not just for sleeping any more — now they’re also for avoiding “rebound insomnia” in the elderly, “increased risk of automotive crashes, decreased work performance … or mood changes,” generalized anxiety disorder, and depression. So it...

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