Pharma Industry Archive

Bayer has been hit with four federal suits claiming its Yaz and Yasmin birth control pills caused 50 deaths, according to the National Law Journal. The cases were brought by Janet G. Abaray (pictured) and others, the same lawyers who won $68 million to settle hundreds of cases brought by women who suffered blood clots while using Johnson & Johnson’s Ortho Evra birth control patch back...

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Merck KGaA claims they aren’t crazy for initiating a Phase III breast cancer trial with the therapeutic cancer vaccine Stimuvax — they’re just completely convinced the darn thing is going to work. I questioned the sanity of the German pharma’s trial initiation last month because Stimuvax 1) hasn’t been vetted in a Phase II breast cancer trial, 2) failed its Phase II lung cancer...

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Just days after Pfizer was accused of “cheap gimmickry” for offering some, but not all, citizens of the Philippines discounts on its medicines, the company has been accused of offering a “bribe” to the government of the archipelago nation to stave off a price control law. BNET first noted that Pfizer’s Philippines discount program had caused controversy on July 8....

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As the battle over healthcare reform rages in Washington, some of the groups that claim to speak for drug companies and doctors are instead annoying each other: The Coalition for Healthcare Communication, a pharma-backed lobby group, published an alarmist ad in a bunch of medical journals claiming that Congress was “trying to censor medical communications.” Doctor-bloggers...

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The FDA’s approval of Eli Lilly’s new blood-thinner, Effient/prasugrel, was a huge moment for a company that has not had a new drug approved in five years. But Wall Street’s analysts seem determined to rain on Lilly’s parade. The spreadsheet jockeys grumbled Friday evening about the black box warning and the assumed price premium over Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Plavix,...

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Top executives from Genentech have been trickling away since Roche completed its acquisition of the biotech bellwether a few months ago, but reports indicate the departures are taking a less voluntary turn as the consolidation spreads from the ivory tower to the rank-and-file. The San Francisco Chronicle reported the latest reductions on Friday, which apparently focused on folks in late stage...

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Ranbaxy continued its mission to embarrass itself as much as possible by issuing a recall for a skin infection treatment just as it expects a final meeting with the FDA on the drugs the agency banned Ranbaxy from selling in the U.S., Bloomberg reported. The recalled drug is 40-milligram Sotret isotretinoin capsules. Ranbaxy told Bloomberg the recall was “normal.” Normal for...

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Dr. Allen Taylor, an ARBITER-6 HALT trial investigator, should probably avoid talking to Merck investors for the next few weeks lest he get punched in the nose. It was Allen and his colleagues’ unexplained announcement that they had stopped an Abbott Labs-funded comparison of Merck’s Zetia with Abbott’s Niaspan that sent Merck’s stock plunging on the assumption that the...

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Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and PhRMA all oppose a pubic heathcare plan, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Instead, they’d like to see individual insurance mandates and an expansion of health savings accounts. But their top executives have health insurance plans which include cash payments of thousands of dollars and coverage that extends for years if they get laid off. For most us,...

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Bayer’s FDA application for yet another new contraceptive pill, Qlaira, is interesting for a couple of reasons: What it says about the financial dependency of Bayer on its contraception portfolio and what it might say in terms of patient safety. Bayer makes $443 million a quarter on its pills, they are its top revenue driver. But a U.S. judge recently invalidated the patent on Yasmin. To...

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