Pharma Industry Archive

Eli Lilly still faces a ton of legal action on its Zyprexa mismarketing, despite having paid a $1.4 billion settlement recently to state prosecutors and a separate $1.2 billion to settle individual patient plaintiffs. That leaves insurance companies, who believe they were defrauded out of money when Lilly persuaded doctors to prescribe Zyprexa for patients they should not have  — so...

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AstraZeneca and Targacept are developing a memory enhancing pill that they hope could be available OTC for students who want to study harder and professionals who don’t want to forget what’s on the next page of their PowerPoint show. They are in a race for a similar approval with Epix, according to the Times and the Telegraph in the UK. The drug was originally developed to slow the...

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Abbott Labs reported its Q4 earnings today and the news was good: revenues up 10 percent to $7.9 billion; net income up 28 percent to $1.54 billion. The results came after a stellar Q3. But despite the good news, one analyst still doesn’t quite trust Abbott. Citigroup’s Matthew Dodds told CNN that he has a problem with Abbott’s “earnings quality”: For the last...

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Eli Lilly is close to settling criminal and civil charges related to its mismarketing of Zyprexa for $1.4 billion, the New York Times reports. The settlement will mean that Lilly will have disgorged $3.1 billion in charges, mostly for Zyprexa, since 2006. That’s about 7.2 percent of its revenues over the period. The settlement will close charges that Lilly marketed the drug for unapproved...

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Bayer has placed itself at the forefront of an international lobbying campaign by the pharmaceutical industry to link patents and marketing approval in foreign countries. On Monday, the Delhi High Court will hear a case in which Bayer wants a ruling that will legally link marketing approval for drugs to their patent status. Such a rule would prevent India’s massive generic drug industry...

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Pfizer’s dangerous tendency to save management instead of its operations — … is one of the company’s problems, according to some commentary in this analysis of the Biggest Pharma. Yes, it is the largest, but that certainly doesn’t immunize Pfizer against the tremendous pressures of the current climate — especially with patents drying up and little to show...

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Employees of Johnson & Johnson should look at today’s Q4 earnings announcement and prepare for layoffs at the company. Although J&J increased its net income by 14.3 percent to $2.7 billion, everything else on its income statement was down: Sales fell 4.9 percent to $15.2 billion, indicating that the overall health of J&J is in decline. To deal with that, the company cut...

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Pfizer has launched a scary new ad (see below) warning people of the dangers of buying pharmaceuticals without a prescription. The ad — which shows a man taking a pill and then vomiting up a dead rat — asks consumers to not buy medicines without prescriptions from websites because the unregulated, unchecked ingredients may be poisonous. The ad is a good one — buying pills from...

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Bayer’s role (or lack thereof — the science jury is still out) in the mass death of bees just keeps making news. The annual meeting of the British Beekeepers Association became contentious over a vote on whether the BBKA should endorse certain pesticides. The BBKA executive panel won the vote — in favor of endorsing pesticides — but by only a 60/40 margin. As The...

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Wyeth has accused one of its shipping managers of taking kickbacks to assign contracts, resulting in €1.3 million in overcharges for air freight shipments. The Irish Times says the accused are: Patrick Walsh, former shipping manager of Wyeth’s Newbridge plant, of Old Town Rise, Sallins Road, Naas, Co Kildare, and Elite Logistics Ltd (in liquidation). In defences submitted, the claims have...

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