Cumberland Pharmaceuticals gets an injectable approved – Cumberland Pharmaceuticals (www.cumberlandpharma.com) today announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Caldolor(TM), an intravenous formulation of ibuprofen, through a priority review. Caldolor is the first and only injectable product approved for sale in the United States for the treatment of both pain and fever…more
Pfizer‘s experimental RA drug looking good – Pfizer Inc. said Thursday its experimental oral treatment for rheumatoid arthritis has met key goals in two midstage studies by improving tender and swollen joints. While the drug is still years away from market, it could eventually become a key competitor to several blockbuster treatments. A key advantage would be that it is taken orally, instead of injected like current treatments…more
Oscient cutting way back – As part of a restructuring to conserve financial resources, the company said it will eliminate approximately 180 positions, including its 150-person sales force and approximately 30 additional sales, marketing and corporate positions, in the next month..more
Merck/Schering Plough: 16,000 job losses.
Ghostwriting: another way pharma has managed to erode public trust – Eli Lilly & Co. officials wrote medical journal studies about the antipsychotic Zyprexa and then asked doctors to put their names on the articles, a practice called “ghostwriting,” according to unsealed company files. Lilly employees also compiled a guide to hiring scientists to write favorable articles, complained to journal editors when publication was delayed and submitted rejected articles to other outlets, according to documents filed in drug-overpricing suits against the Indianapolis-based company, the largest manufacturer of psychiatric medicines. Drugmakers’ use of ghostwriters has created “a huge body of medical literature that society can’t trust,” said Carl Elliott, a University of Minnesota bioethicist who has written about the practice…more Withholding of clinical information isn’t too trust-building either, by the way. Or off-label marketing, for that matter.
Novartis – radically re-making its drug business (BusinessWeek article). And, also producing the first batch of H1N1 flu vaccine.
——
Subscribe to the Impactiviti blog via e-mail
Subscribe to the Impactiviti blog via RSS
Connect with Steve Woodruff
Leave a Reply