Pharma Industry Archive

Some reps at AstraZeneca – the ones urging their colleagues to use Tigger and Eeyore to sell the antipsychotic Seroquel – just don’t learn. Last year, AZ got itself embroiled in a federal investigation after one rep urged his colleagues to regard oncology docs’ offices as “big buckets of money.” That rep was fired, and another left the company in the wake of the incident....

More...

Sanofi, Pfizer cancel obesity drugs — Sanofi-Aventis formally canceled its troubled Acomplia program today; psychiatric side effects have made U.S. approval increasingly unlikely. A few hours later, Pfizer canceled development of its similar phase III compound, presumably because Acomplia’s woes will provoke intense scrutiny on any future anti-obesity products. The fate of similar...

More...

A class action suit representing people who suffered cardiovascular events after taking Zelnorm, Novartis‘ now-recalled irritable bowel syndrome drug, has been filed in Canada. Trudy Metzger, was a healthy 36-year-old before she took the drug. Then she was felled by a heart attack and is now the media-friendly lead plaintiff. The case demands $125 million in compensation. On its own, the...

More...

For those of you hoping that America’s obesity crisis could be solved with a pill, think again. Pfizer announced late Wednesday that it is scrapping its anti-fat drug, the as-yet unnamed “CP-945,598,” for essentially political reasons. Sanofi-Aventis today also announced that it was ending its trials on Acomplia/Zimulti, an obesity pill that was approved and then yanked in Europe. And...

More...

GlaxoSmithKline cuts 1,800 sales reps — The final total promised yesterday is a big one, with 1,000 jobs eliminated and the remaining 800 reassigned from pharma to vaccines. GSK’s U.S. headquarters, meanwhile, will be consolidated in North Carolina. [Source: WSJ Health Blog] Osiris and Genzyme stem cell deal worth billions — The two firms will cooperate on developing and...

More...

Johnson & Johnson’s decision to consolidate its $110 million drug advertising business at two agency holding companies, WPP and InterPublic, raises an interesting question: If it’s supposed to be a consolidation, why two and not one? Here’s one possible answer: The companies are being pitted against each other in an efficiency race. Large drug marketers have always...

More...

Glaxo reorganizes U.S. operations — Final details of the changes are planned for release on Wednesday, November 5. Cuts to sales rep teams are expected; a new head of Glaxo North America (the current head, Chris Viehbacher, is leaving to lead Sanofi), however, will not yet be named. [Source: Pharmalot] Connecticut congressmen ask Pfizer to keep U.S. jobs — Pfizer has significant...

More...

GlaxoSmithKline is historically terrible at handling layoffs news, and the round of job cuts that appears imminent is no exception. (Update: the official announcement is coming on Wednesday.) As usual, the news is being debated all over the net before management has gotten out of bed (just like last time). Let’s check GSK’s internal human resources intranet (often referred to as...

More...

Winds of change coming to Sanofi in 2009 — In December, Chris Viehbacher will take the helm as CEO, and analysts are predicting he will bring sweeping changes (perhaps acquisitions or executive shake-ups) with him. [Source: FiercePharma] U.S. children taking more drugs than ever before — Especially prevalent treatments include those for hypertension, high cholesterol, and diabetes....

More...

Another month has passed so it’s time once again to look at the pharmaceutical news that didn’t deserve a headline but was still too strange to be ignored. Here are BNET’s 10 Weirdest Drug Stories of October 2008: Malaria cure is now cherry flavored Novartis has developed a fruit-favored version of Coartem, its malaria treatment. It hopes the pill will be more palatable to...

More...