PharmaGossip

All together now!

2009-11-08T23:39:00.001Z

Wanna job at Pfizer?

2009-11-08T22:46:00.001Z

New Jersey - still the US's medicine chest?

2009-11-08T22:00:00.002Z

In 1990, 20 percent of the nation's pharmaceutical jobs were in New Jersey.

It now has 13 percent of them.

From 2007 to 2008, the state lost 10 percent of its jobs in the high-paying industry.

Source

Insider hears that Pfizer will announce R&D site decisions on Monday.

2009-11-08T21:32:00.002Z

New London Ct HQ may be sold to local hospital/medical group.

November 16 - 21: National Pharm Free Week

2009-11-08T16:57:00.002Z

http://www.pharmfree.org/

Who's losing drug jobs | WHYY News and Information

2009-11-08T14:10:00.001Z

via whyy.org

Posted via web from Jack's posterous

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | The out-takes: Sesame Street

2009-11-08T14:01:00.001Z

via news.bbc.co.uk

In a special edition, Matthew Stadlen travels to Sesame Street to spend Five Minutes with Cookie Monster, Elmo, Big Bird, Grover and Oscar the Grouch.

Posted via web from Jack's posterous

Pharma Giles writes..... Phoni goes Phorward!

2009-11-08T13:37:00.008Z

Recent visitors to the Phoni Pharmaceuticals web page have been surprised to see that the familiar corporate “orange oval” logo has undergone a facelift.

“We felt it was time to re-examine our corporate image in the light of recent company history,” explains Jilly Jollie, Phoni’s Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications.

“Phoni’s original logo dates back to the eighties, when the company was a science-driven organisation with high ethical standards. Of course, that model is no longer relevant in today’s modern pharmaceutical marketplace,” Ms. Jollie observes. “More recently, our image has become that of a ruthless ‘slash and burn’ takeover specialist with a reputation as being ‘No.1 in corporate malfeasance’, a perception that some of our investors are uncomfortable with given the current unpopularity of corporate greed.”

“So we’ve decided to try and draw a line under our price-gouging, third-world outsourcing, employee-shafting, illegal marketing, disease-mongering, ghost-writing, clinical-trials-rigging, Medicaid-defrauding past, and instead try to look to a new compliant and ethical future. We were therefore keen to adopt a new logo to show our commitment to that vision.”

It was with this objective in mind that Phoni engaged the services of Tourette's, the infamous corporate makeover specialists.

“Our first task was to find out just what people thought of Phoni Pharmaceuticals,” said corporate image consultant, Tanya Upwoodly-Mobyle. “We spoke to hundreds of company employees, customers and executives, to try and find out just what the overall perception of Phoni’s image was in the minds of the people who know it.”

“We then took all of this feedback and shared it with our top advertising executives and graphic designers. After an intensive three-week creative brainstorming session in a luxury hotel in the Seychelles, the team managed to come up with a company legend that they felt truly captured the corporate essence of Phoni Pharmaceuticals...”

“Whilst we felt that the honesty behind this first effort was commendable, ‘honesty’ isn’t really a concept that Phoni embraces,” explains Phoni’s Jilly Jollie. “Sure, we’re keen to draw a line under our past behaviour, but not to the extent that we admit to any need to actually change it. All of our lying, bullying and law-breaking makes us far too much money for that.”

“What we really wanted was a new image that looks like we’ve changed things, but at the same time gives reassurance that it’s all really just business as usual…”

Tanya Upwoodly-Mobyle’s team were unfazed by the task. “After another six weeks intensive brainstorming in the Bahamas, we decided to adopt Phoni’s own approach to “evergreening” old, clapped-out ideas,” she recalls.

“After all, all Phoni does to squeeze more mileage out of its old products is to change the colour and shape of the pills and packaging, claim superiority over the original product and then charge five times the price. So we thought we’d do exactly the same...”

“We’re delighted with the result,” said Phoni’s Jillie Jollie. “The new logo is on the slide and there are one or two cosmetic changes, but otherwise everything’s just the same. This exactly reflects the company itself,” she observes.

Tourette’s are also satisfied with the outcome.

“We’ve managed to make buckets of money, just from a few clicks of a mouse in Paint Shop,” trilled Tanya Upwoodly-Mobyle. “$13 million in fact. This pharmaceutical corporate branding stuff is just money for old rope, isn’t it…?”

Jack brings related tales from the parallel universe of reality…

Attention drug reps - this guy is funny!

2009-11-08T08:17:00.002Z

Hat tip: http://michaelguzzo.blogspot.com/

From the DVD "The Healthy Humorist in Orlando: Laughter is the Best Medicine" by Brad Nieder, M.D.

www.healthyhumorist.com

PhRMA Statement on House Passage of Health Care Reform Bill - Yahoo! News

2009-11-08T08:10:00.001Z

To: POLITICAL EDITORS

Contact: Jennifer Wall for PhRMA, +1-202-835-3460

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Senior Vice President Ken Johnson released the following statement regarding the House health care reform bill:

"We are disappointed, but not surprised by today's vote -- an uneasiness echoed by millions of hardworking Americans as well as nearly half of the members of the U.S. House of Representatives who voted against the bill.

via news.yahoo.com

Posted via web from Jack's posterous

Doing the business in Ireland

2009-11-08T04:40:00.001Z

Ireland’s drug regulator has been accused of being too close to the pharmaceutical industry. An academic report has concluded that more than one-in-four senior personnel at the Irish Medicines Board (IMB) had “potential conflicts of interest”.

The Sunday Times

Healthcare Bill passed in the House 220 - 215!

2009-11-08T04:08:00.005Z

I saw it live on the BBC!

A mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam

2009-11-08T03:57:00.000Z

VIDEO: Second Generation Antipsychotic Drugs Show Almost Immediate Unwanted Metabolic Effects in Children

2009-11-07T22:25:00.001Z

via insidermedicine.ca

Posted via web from Jack's posterous

The Miami Herald profiles Chuck Nemeroff

2009-11-07T21:16:00.004Z

Notes on a scandal.

Charles Nemeroff, an Atlanta psychiatrist who was the subject of a Senate investigation concerning huge sums he received from drug companies, has been named chairman of the psychiatry department at the University of Miami.

Last year Nemeroff, as the top psychiatrist at Emory University, was the focus of an investigation by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who said he was concerned about the millions the psychiatrist received from drug companies while conducting supposedly unbiased research for the National Institutes of Health on drugs made by the companies he was receiving money from.

On Thursday, Pascal Goldschmidt, dean of UM medical school, called Nemeroff ``an exceptional psychiatrist and an exceptional scientist who has one issue in which he recognizes he made a mistake,'' in not telling Emory how much he was getting from drug makers.

Goldschmidt said he had read investigative reports from Emory about Nemeroff's activities and Emory found nothing to indicate that payments the psychiatrist received had in any way influenced his research results.

Elsewhere, opinions are divided.

The former head of psychiatry at Duke University told The Miami Herald Thursday that Nemeroff was ``economical with the truth'' and his work can't be trusted, while the leader of the Columbia University psychiatry program said Nemeroff was a top-flight scientist and he had never seen any bias in his work.

For his own part, Nemeroff, 60, said he was excited to be coming to Miami. ``I think it's going to be a top-10 school.''

PAYMENT DISCLOSURE

Nemeroff's appointment comes at a time when healthcare reform bills in both the House and Senate have sections requiring healthcare providers to publicly reveal their payments to doctors.

In October 2008, the psychiatrist's activities made the front page of The New York Times after Grassley investigators found that Nemeroff -- ``one of the nation's most influential psychiatrists,'' according to The Times -- had received $2.8 million in consulting deals with drug makers over seven years and failed to report at least $1.2 million of that to Emory.

Based on Grassley's complaints, Nemeroff's work on a mayor NIH grant was suspended and Emery asked him to step down as chair of psychiatry while it studied his conduct.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services had launched an investigation into Nemeroff's activities. An OIG spokesman said it never confirms nor denies investigations. Nemeroff said he knew nothing about OIG looking at him.

According to published reports, the psychiatrist received between $800,000 to $1.2 million from GlaxoSmithKline while leading a major study into mood disorder drugs, including ones made by GSK.

Nemeroff said Thursday that the news reports had not made clear that his talks were on GSK drugs now on the market, while his research funded by NIH involved basic lab studies of GSK chemical compounds that were years away from market. That work did not promote GSK products, he told The Herald.

`SCIENCE PIMPING'

But Bernard Carroll, former head of psychiatry at Duke University and once Nemeroff's boss, said parts of Nemeroff's work involved Paxil, a GSK antidepressant. ``Basically, he was doing basic science pimping for Paxil to produce talking points,'' Carroll told The Herald in an e-mail Thursday. ``All he ever produced was speculation but that was enough to satisfy Glaxo marketing. . . . I have been exposing his shenanigans for some years.''

Jeffrey Lieberman, head of psychiatry at Columbia University, praised Nemeroff as a leading expert in ``basic neuroscience,'' studying underlying pathologies and proteins in the brain that cause mental illness. He said he had never detected ``any undue influence or bias'' in Nemeroff's research.

However, all the academics interviewed Thursday acknowledged that large payments to researchers were a concern. ``Of course, it creates problems,'' Carroll said.

At UM, Goldschmidt said it was important for researchers and pharmaceutical companies to work together to develop better drugs. He said limits of how much researchers should be allowed to receive are still being debated.

In June, the Pew Prescription Project gave UM a ``B'' on a scorecard designed to measure ethical policies on professors' relationship with the pharmaceutical industry.

REQUIREMENTS

UM is now in the process of strengthening its reporting requirements, said Goldschmidt, so that all outside professional work must be reported -- and the results will eventually be posted online for the public to see.

Those requirements will apply to Nemeroff, who starts at UM on Dec. 1, and all other medical school staffers.

In the past, Goldschmidt said, there was debate whether professors needed to report fees from drug makers for giving continuing medical education (CME) talks, which are supposed to be non-promotional. That became an issue in Nemeroff's case in Atlanta.

In an interview Thursday, Nemeroff said in retrospect he should have declared the CME payments he received from drug makers, but he viewed Emory standards as not requiring such revelations.

LETTER OF SUPPORT

In a letter to Grassley last December, Emory officials wrote: ``We do not believe that Dr. Nemeroff's participation in the compensated speaking arrangements with GSK in any way biased the research conducted under the grant.''

The letter said Nemeroff's talks on behalf of GSK were ``focused on medical education and were not product specific or promotional. . . . As you alleged, Dr. Nemeroff did not disclose substantial speaking fees from pharmaceutical companies to Emory. Under federal regulations and Emory's policies, we believe he should have done so, although both the regulations and our policies could have been clearer.''

Grassley responded in a letter that his staff's research found that Nemeroff's talks were promoting GSK products -- not educational -- and should have been reported.

Tom Johnson, former president of the CNN network and former publisher of The Los Angeles Times, said Thursday he was part of an Emory advisory board that examined Nemeroff's behavior and the university's ethics policies. The policies were ``confusing,'' Johnson told The Herald. They have since been modified.

`HE'S BRILLIANT'

``He's brilliant,'' Johnson said of Nemeroff. ``He was responsible for a significant number of grants and he built up the department. Miami's getting a truly gifted psychiatrist.''

Johnson said he has suffered from depression for years, and Nemeroff's treatment of him was outstanding. ``I'm not sure if I'd be around today if it weren't for him.''

In Miami, Goldschmidt said Nemeroff was multidimensional -- strong in basic research, treatment of patients and building programs such as suicide prevention.

His biography lists stints as president of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and the American College of Psychiatrists. He has published more than 750 research reports and reviews.]

``I know I'm going to take a little smack in the face for this hire,'' Goldschmidt said. ``But you don't do anything important without taking some risks. It's very important that the people of Miami have access to a phenomenal psychiatrist like this.''

Source

Disease-mongering human sexual response

2009-11-07T15:24:00.002Z

Story

Drugmakers find whistle-blowing a bitter pill to swallow

2009-11-07T13:22:00.001Z

"The seeds for these cases were planted a number of years ago, and they're finally coming to fruition," said Reuben Guttman, a lawyer in Washington who specializes in whistle-blower cases. "There's lots more coming."

Source

Elizabeth Warren: We Rescued The Top Of The System, Left The Bottom To Fend For Itself

2009-11-07T10:15:00.001Z

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

MedWire News - Diabetes - FDA to revise prescribing information for exenatide, sitagliptin

2009-11-07T09:27:00.001Z

Source medwire-news.md

Posted via web from Jack's posterous

Storm clouds over CVS Caremark (Corporate Dealmaker)

2009-11-06T18:38:00.001Z

Thursday brought news that CVS Caremark has lost a couple of big PBM clients and that its business practices are being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission.

via thedeal.com

Posted via web from Jack's posterous

Abbott under kickback probe over Depakote sales -

2009-11-06T18:34:00.001Z

Abbott Laboratories this morning confirmed the company's sales and marketing practices of Depakote, the widely used drug to treat bipolar disorder and epilepsy, are under federal investigation.

The U.S. Department of Justice, through the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, is handling the probe, the company said in a statement. "We are cooperating with the investigation," a company spokeswoman said.

Abbott said federal prosecutors are seeking to determine whether any of the company's sales and marketing practices "violated civil and/or criminal laws, including the Federal False Claims Act, the Food and Drug Cosmetic Act, and the Anti-Kickback Statute in connection with Medicare and/or Medicaid reimbursement to third parties"

Depakote sales were at one time more than $1 billion annually but have fallen lately in the face of competition from cheaper generic copies. Depakote sales in the U.S. were down 77 percent in the third quarter, to $66 million, compared to the year-ago period.

Federal investigations into pharmaceutical marketing, particularly as it relates to how brand name pills and capsules are marketed to physicians are common and have been on the rise over the last decade. Such probes have netted the federal government huge settlements as U.S. prosecutors work to curb illegal practices they say lead to higher health care costs when companies push more expensive brand-name drugs, often over cheaper generics entering the market or rival brands.

Earlier this year, Pfizer Inc. paid a record $2.3 billion settlement in a deal with federal and state prosecutors that covered the New York drug giant's marketing of four drugs, including Bextra, a painkiller, and Geodon, an anti-psychotic medication.

The Pfizer settlement bested an earlier marketing imbroglio involving TAP Pharmaceutical Products Inc. In 2001, the Chicago-area drugmaker resolved criminal and civil allegations brought by the Justice Department by agreeing to pay $885 million and pleading guilty to a criminal charge of conspiring with doctors to bill government insurers for free samples of the prostate cancer drug Lupron.

TAP, a joint venture of North Chicago-based Abbott Laboratories and Takeda Pharmaceuticals of Japan, since has been dissolved, with its products divvied up between its owners. Abbott sells Lupron.

bjapsen@tribune.com

via chicagotribune.com

Posted via web from Jack's posterous

Boston Scientific closes one case for $296 million and discloses a new subpoena « CardioBrief

2009-11-06T17:36:00.001Z

Boston Scientific announced today that it had agreed with the Department of Justice to plead guilty to “two misdemeanor charges related to failure to include information in reports” to the FDA and to pay $296 million to the government. The products involved in the investigation were the VENTAK PRIZM(®) 2, the CONTAK RENEWAL(®) and the CONTAK RENEWAL 2 devices, which were the subjects of the 2005 product advisories, the company said.

Separately, on page 29 of a 10-Q filed with the SEC, Boston Scientific disclosed that it had received a subpoena from the HHS Inspector General “requesting certain information relating to contributions made by CRM to charities with ties to physicians or their families.” The company said it was “currently working with the government to understand the scope of the subpoena.” No further details were disclosed.

William Maisel provided the following perspective on the subpoena to CardioBrief:

I have no specific insight or additional information on this matter. That being said, it appears that the OIG understands that conflicts of interest extend beyond simple direct payments to physicians. Specifically, conflicts of interest can include things such as academic notoriety or advancement and indirect payments to charities on behalf of a physician. At the same time, just because a physician receives payment or has a conflict of interest should not indict them, the company that made the payment, or their opinions about the product involved. Many important industry advances have come from close physician-industry ties.

Click here to read the Boston Scientific press release.

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Filed under: Uncategorized

via cardiobrief.org

Posted via web from Jack's posterous

Eastell at the GMC

2009-11-06T14:45:00.001Z

Day 1

Astellas - Prograf: competition

2009-11-06T14:17:00.001Z

Astellas Pharma has posted a 8.2% fall in earnings for the first half of the year and cuts its earnings forecast for the full year due to generic competition to its immunosuppressant Prograf.

Net income came in at 83.49 billion yen (about $924.4 million), hit by the appreciation of the yen against the dollar and the euro, plus higher R&D costs. Sales edged up 0.3% to 494.64 billion yen, driven by Prograf (tacrolimus).

Source

Merck - Saphris: now here's something you don't read in an FDA document every day

2009-11-06T09:30:00.003Z

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