PharmaStats

IMS Health to be Acquired by TPG and CPP Investment Board

2009-11-05T10:14:00.000-05:00

IMS Health to be Acquired by TPG and CPP Investment Board

Running For Congress

2009-09-28T20:40:00.001-04:00

I have decide to run for congress in Pennsylvania's 8th distict. You can read more at JeffreySchott.com

The story of Jack-O-Lantern

2009-08-21T09:19:00.003-04:00

Just completed a collaborative effort to publish a cute original children's story on YouTube. Check it out below:

Images in this video are available as free printable greeting cards at PrintSmiles.com

Aspirin shows promise for colon cancer patients

2009-08-15T16:55:00.003-04:00

Aspirin is the medication that keeps on giving. First pain and fever relieve, then heart attack prevention, and now a treatment for colon cancer patients.

Read the full article in PhillyBurbs.com here

New website PrintSmiles.com

2009-08-01T13:58:00.002-04:00

I helped launch a new website called PrintSmiles.com. It is the next version of ThirdAgeProductions.com and allows users to customize printable greeting cards that can be printed out to fit a standard number 6 envelope, quarter fold. It also allows you to customize a card and have them print it on greeting card stock and mail it for you (the first one is free and then $1.99 including postage).

Check it out!

The rich will pay for everyone's health care

2009-07-24T11:16:00.004-04:00

Sounds good doesn't it? Most of us are not rich. However, that's how the government institutes all of their money and power grabbing schemes.

For example:

The income tax (instituted in 1913) was only taxing the top 1% of Americans. Now the majority pay income tax
The Alternative Minimum Tax was to cut loopholes for the top 1%. It was never indexed for inflation so now many middle class people are also hit by the AMT
How many toll roads were implemented until "the road was paid for", but never became toll-free. Despite the fact that the cost of collecting the tolls exceeds the tolls collected
Social security was for retirement and disabilities, but it became another funding source for Washington. They keep saying Social Security is in trouble starting in 2017. Well, if you actually look at the IOUs in the "trust fund", Social Security actually has funds through 2041. But, because Washington spent the trust fund, they'll have to raise taxes in 2017 to pay it back to the trust fund.

I agree that we need reform. However, the government should be responsible for fairness controls and regulations not total control.

And, if the plan is so great, why is there an exception for Congresspeople and Senators? They should be forced to take the "public plan".

IMS Health to cut work force by 11 percent

2009-07-24T11:05:00.003-04:00

According to this Reuter's article, IMS health will be cutting their workforce by 850 (about 11%). The article blames the economic downturn and a "dearth of new products". I also think that the uncertainty of health care coverage/structure in the US is a big contributor.

Cap and Sue

2009-07-15T06:19:00.002-04:00

I read this interesting article on townhall.com. Basically, the cap and trade bill will allow individuals to sue the government and companies if they suffer "harm".

Here's a quote from that article:

..."the measure sets grounds for anyone 'who has suffered, or reasonably
expects to suffer, a harm attributable, in whole or in part,' to government
inaction to file a 'citizen suit.' The term 'harm' is broadly defined as
'any
effect of air pollution (including climate change), currently occurring
or at
risk of occurring.'

This bill is shaping up to be a real disaster. These people in congress have lost any common sense they may have had. We can lower emissions in about a million better ways than this "tax and sue" bill that is going to force more jobs to China and India because they do not have to abide by any standards.

How does your state rate against others in healthcare?

2009-06-29T12:15:00.002-04:00

Today, I read about a goverment web site that rates healthcare in several categories by state. You can fine the site at http://statesnapshots.ahrq.gov/snaps08/map.jsp?menuId=2&state= .

States are rated in the following categories:

Types of care (Preventative, Acute Care, and Chronic Care)
Setting of care (Home Health Care, Hospital care, nursing home care, and ambulatory care)
By clinical area (Cancer, Diabetes, Heart disease, maternal and Child health, and Respiratory disease)

How did your state do?

Pay for delay. More waste in healthcare

2009-06-24T09:53:00.003-04:00

In addition to the $1.2 TRILLION wasted each year in our health care system outlined in a Price Waterhouse Coopers study, the Wall Street journal found another $3.5 billion a year in a practice known as "pay for delay" where pharmaceutical companies pay generic manufacturers to delay the launch of generic alternatives. You can find the WSJ article here.

I'm in limited company in that I feel that pharmaceutical companies are entitled to make a profit during their patent time period. They are also a common target although they are not the majority of health care costs. However, this "pay for delay" amounts to bribes and unfair competition practices and should be stopped.

Social Networking for Doctors

2009-06-22T09:47:00.003-04:00

I ran across this list of sites listing social networks for doctors. What's interesting is that you have to be a physician to get into these sites. I am a technology person and most of our networking sites are wide open. I can understand why doctors may want to remain anonymous (actually within these sites I think they are anonymous), but what don't they want us to see?

I'm sure these conversations could help some people struggling for information about their ailments and would inform us all of what is "really" going on in health care. Limiting posts to just physicians would be perfectly acceptable as many sites control their posters. What do you think?

Court upholds datamining ban in Vermont

2009-05-01T12:52:00.003-04:00

Read more, including a link to the full decision, here at the Prescription Access Litigation site.

I may be a little bias, because I have done work for the data providers and the pharmaceutical companies, but I still don't understand why prescriptions written by a business (a doctor's office) is off limits but anyone can get a hold of an individuals credit transactions, cell phone records, etc. Do we like the banks and credit companies better than the pharmaceutical companies???

Some interesting healthcare suggestions

2009-04-24T14:51:00.002-04:00

I just ran across this press release from Phrma and Families USA. They have some interesting ideas on improving health care while acknowledging that additional reform is needed. In a nutshell, they are suggesting:

People with incomes lower than 133% of poverty level would be eligible for care under Medicare
Sliding scale subsidies for families who exceed the level specified above
Out-of-pocket maximums

There are not enough details, but on the surface it looks reasonable.

Never ending bailout

2009-04-18T08:20:00.004-04:00

A New York Times editorial, titled "Never ending bailout", asks the question of who we are really bailing out. I think it's an excellent question.

We were told that AIG was "too big to fail" and "the impact would be catastrophic". However, we were never really told what would actually happen. I admit that credit markets would have been strained, but they are anyway. How much of a difference did it really make? What would the impact have been if some AIG companies failed (by the way the consumer insurance division was just fine and in a decent position)? Do they even know? If they did, why wasn't the analysis make public? If they didn't know, shame on them voting for something without any details. That's like voting on a bill without ever reading it. Oh wait, they did that too. Is the real reason that AIG has given millions of dollars in campaign contributions to these same congressmen and senators? Maybe yes, maybe know, but it's definitely a conflict of interest and ethics.

Both parties are not being "transparent" with us, despite their rhetoric. It's time for full disclosure.

Update: Look at the 12 highest recipient's of AIG contributions here. Does that have anything to do with them being saved?

Teachers Salaries

2009-04-13T14:36:00.003-04:00

Interested in how much teachers make in different states? Check out http://teacherportal.com/ . I ran across a reference to this site in a blog entry titled "Pennsylvania Becomes Teacher 'Supply State'"

I guess only rich people smoke

2009-04-01T22:20:00.002-04:00

Just signed-up for twitter and am following several politicians and news sources (both left and right). The most interesting today was an entry from Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. It linked to this article about the additional 62 cents federal tax on every pack of cigarettes. However, there are a lot of people who make less than $250,000 a year that smoke (I thought those people weren't going to see any tax increases.

Wake up people. The average american already pays about 54% in taxes. Many of these are "hidden" federal taxes. Check out the facts at these links:

It's time for us all to look at our TOTAL TAXES !

Walmart takes on PBMs

2009-04-01T10:10:00.002-04:00

This artitle talks about how PBMs (Pharmacy Benefits Managers) are trying to mandate mail-order prescriptions, thereby cutting out the retail pharmacies. This didn't make Walmart and Walgreen very happy, so they're trying to cut out the PBMs.

Having this battle could help drive down drug prices (for generics at least). However, if one of the models outright wins, watch for prices to float up again. Competition is good!

Linkshare Update

2009-03-26T14:23:00.002-04:00

In this prior blog entry I spoke of trying Linkshare on a web site to make some extra dollars. While we had a lot of control over the ads shown, we have yet to yield a single sale. Perhaps it's just a sign of the times.

We still show a few selected Linkshare ads, but have switched back to primarily using Google AdSense. It doesn't make a lot of money, but it makes some money.

If you had a different experience, let us know.

Government Philosophy

2009-03-12T09:51:00.002-04:00

Ronald Reagan said "If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it". This has been our government's philosophy for a long time. However, they are getting much better at it.

"If it moves, tax it" - You can only tax so much before people will vote us out. So, let's hide the taxes in corporate taxes, sin taxes, social security taxes, state taxes, local taxes, etc. You're still paying the tax, it just isn't on your 1040 form.

"If it keeps moving, regulate it" - Good regulation is too much work. So instead, let's just spend a lot of money making it look like we're regulating it. When it all falls apart, just claim you didn't regulate enough and you need more money to do it properly.

"If it stops moving, subsidize it" - Subsidize (can you say bail out) . Actually fixing is too hard also, set let's just tax it some more, and make it look like we're regulating it more.

H1-B Visas

2009-02-12T13:31:00.002-05:00

There is a very interesting article in InfoWorld. The author, Bill Snyder, makes a case for eliminating H1-B visas because there is currently no shortage of tech workers in the USA. In fact, 200,000 are unemployed. It's certainly some food for thought!

Read the article here

IMS & Verisplan ask the supreme court...

2009-02-06T07:34:00.001-05:00

IMS & Verisplan ask the supreme court to overturn the New Hampshire prescription privacy law. You can read more about it here

Expanding Blog

2009-01-14T11:32:00.003-05:00

In addition to working with Pharmaceutical sales and marketing organizations, I've been spending time doing many other things. Rather than maintaining multiple blogs, I've decided to ad comments about these other endeavors within this blog.

One of the other things I've beendoing is helping clients make a few extra dollars placing advertisments on their web sites. I've found that Google Ad Manager is a great free tool that allows you to control the displaying and optimizing ads on your site. You can sell ads yourself, use Google adsense (context based ads), and include third party ad networks.

Recently, I've signed one of my clients up for affiliate marketing with Linkshare. You can learn move about them, and sign up, by clicking on the following image:

Here's how it works in a nutshell:

You create an account
Find affiliates/programs that are relevent to your website and apply. The site I'm working on is a greeting card site, so we looked for gift affiliates (candy, flowers, etc). The affiliates need to approve your request. Several accepted our application, but others rejected us because our volume is currently too low. We can reapply when, hopefully, the volume increases.

We've been having some issues with reconciling numbers. Google Admanager will show all impressions that you served. Because the one pixel image used by linkshare could be cached by a users browser and/or a proxy server, the linkshare numbers are much lower. You can fix this by adding a CacheBuster, but we chose not to do so. The other issue we were having is tracking clicks within Ad manager. They mention that there are issues with third party ad networks, so we chose not to try to track clicks within Ad manager.

I'll comment more on our experience as time passes.

Janssen (a Johnson & Johnson company) accused of Medicaid fraud in Texas

2008-12-17T09:47:00.002-05:00

According to this Pharmalot blog entry, Janssen (a Johnson & Johnson company) has been accused of funneling kickbacks and false marketing materials in order to get it's Risperdal drug on the approved drug list. The article has links to the Dallas newspaper article with more details and the court filing. There are also quotes from a J&J spokesperson denying any wrong doing.

Next group on the gravy train to Washington

2008-12-10T11:24:00.002-05:00

According to this WSJ article, the Biotech firms are heading to Washington for a bailout of sorts. Biotech companies lose money for many years while they work on a new drug. Now, they can use those losses to offset income in the future. Due to tough economic times, they want to trade that in and get up to $30 million dollars per company to help them stay afloat.

The traffic to Bailoutville (Washington DC) is quickly approaching grid-lock.

Medicare to cover prescription handguns?

2008-12-04T13:36:00.003-05:00

The FDA has classified the Palm Pistol (a handheld firearm) as a Class I medical device. This means that doctors can write a prescription for this gun and file to get reimbursed through Medicare and third party insurers.

Read the details here! I found this hard to believe, but do a search on "Palm Pistol" and you'll see a bunch of references from reliable sources concurring.