The FDA approved the first maintenance therapy for lung cancer this week: Eli Lilly’s chemotherapy drug Alimta (pemetrexed). But as Lilly admits in its press release, the concept of maintenance therapy is not one lung cancer docs are familiar with. Alimta was already approved for first- and second-line treatment of lung cancer as well as for mesothelioma. It generated sales of $1.15 billion...
Pharma Industry Archive
July 2009
Is anyone else tired of hearing that drug companies care more about profits than patients? Me, too. But even more tiresome than the anti-pharma rhetoric is the fact that industry keeps pouring fuel on the fire. True, most drug makers got into the business in order to help people. “Making medicine is hard, folks,” Michael Zimmer eloquently notes on his blog. “Honestly, if all...
Wyeth told the WSJ that it did not know about a study published Wednesday in Nature that claims the age of mice was increased 9 - 14 percent if they took Rapamune, a drug Wyeth markets to suppress the immune system so that organ transplants won’t be rejected. A second study in Science was on monkeys. When told it owned a potential fountain of youth by the WSJ: A Wyeth spokesman called it...
MannKind bought the old inhaled insulin plant* inventory Pfizer used for Exubera last month, just one month after the FDA accepted its application for Afresa, another inhaled insulin product. So the company appears poised for a big leap — if the FDA allows MannKind to sell its drug (delivered via its TechnoSphere inhaler, pictured) it can finally start earning some revenues. Take a look...
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered an en banc review of Tafas v. Doll, the head-achingly complicated patent case involving GlaxoSmithKline. The case is closely followed by Pfizer, Amgen, Biogen, Wyeth, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Neurocrine, Isis, Medarex, Genentech, Eli Lilly and of course PhRMA, who are expected to file amici briefs or contribute to those being filed by others. At...
Pfizer has been criticized for offering some Filipinos discounts of up to 60 percent on its drugs because the discounts are not available to all. In the Philippines, Pfizer promotes a “Sulit Patient Care Program” in which holders of the Sulit card get discounts on various Pfizer drugs. About 1.9 million patients have taken advantage of it, Pfizer claims. The problem, according to...
If you read the news that a federal appeals court ruled in favor of Abbott Labs in a case where it was accused of rigging prices for the HIV drug Norvir, you probably came away scratching your head. Here’s an explanation of how Abbott, which has a monopoly on Norvir, is now allowed as a matter of law to continue to rig prices of GlaxoSmithKline’s Lexiva and Bristol-Myers...
The Justice Department has joined the chorus of those arguing that pay-to-delay settlements between branded and generic pharma companies are anti-competitive and illegal. The forces seem to be gathering for a review by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has thus far declined to hear the issue. Bloomberg: The department, in a filing yesterday with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York in...
Pfizer is pulling out of its much-heralded Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center in San Francisco. The BBC is no longer relevant now that Pfizer has acquired Wyeth’s big biotech assets. The move is not a surprise. The Pfizer BBC boss, Corey Goodman, famously left Pfizer with $1.7 million in severance after doing less than two years’ work. He signed an agreement never to talk...
In the flap over whether Sanofi-Aventis‘ Lantus diabetes drug has an association with cancer, cynicism seems to be winning. Sanofi’s stock (see graph) seems not to have recovered from reports that Lantus was linked to cancer, even though Sanofi obtained an approval for a new heart drug, Multaq. Meanwhile, Sanofi’s rivals are happily spraying the fire with extra gasoline. The...
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- Merck Gives Snapshot of Combined Company: $47B in Sales; Just $7.6B in Cash
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- FDA Delays Genzyme's Lumizyme, Manufacturing Problems Blamed
- Will FDA Approve MannKind's Insulin Inhaler?
- VeriChip TV Ad Confirms Critics' Fears: They Want Everyone Implanted
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- Microchip Implant to Link Your Health Records, Credit History, Social Security
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- NYT's MannKind Story Needlessly Quoted a Competitor Bashing Afresa
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- BioCryst's Antiviral Drug Peramivir Aims to Keep Swine-Flu Body Count Low
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