Clever Hospitals Find Another Way to Snag New Patients
Last month, I wrote about a hospital system in Colorado that had discovered a way to cross market its more profitable emergency room services if a patient first came to its urgent care center. Pretty clever! Then recently I came across another health care marketing trick close to home and just as sly. As I sat on a New York subway one sizzler of a day, an ad for an ice cream cone grabbed my attention. Ice cream! Hot day! After a closer read, I realized the ad was not touting ice cream but the Center for Advanced Digestive Care, a part of New York Presbyterian, one of the city’s most prestigious hospitals and well kno...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - August 19, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Things that make you go hmmm! EMA policy on transparency is “strikingly” similar to deal struck with drug company, say experts
Peter Doshihttp://www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g3852?sso=A US drug company seems to have influenced the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) draft policy on access to clinical trial data, which academics have claimed keeps too much information hidden.Documents obtained by The BMJ under a freedom of information request showed a significant overlap between what the US drug giant AbbVie had agreed with the EMA could be released about its drug adalimumab (marketed as Humira) and the agency’s draft policy on providing public access to drug company data.In 2012 the EMA announced a new, “proactive” transparency poli...
Source: PharmaGossip - June 12, 2014 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Martha Rosenberg writes
This article was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2014 at 2:44pm and is filed underHealth/Medical, Pharmaceuticals. 0 0 51http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/03/big-pharma-helps-milk-lobby-with-dangerous-drug/? (Source: PharmaGossip)
Source: PharmaGossip - March 18, 2014 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
We Need a Revolution in the Pharmaceutical Drug Industry! By Rabbi Dr.
Shmuly Yanklowitz
Imagine you live in a small village in Africa and your child is dying of a treatable disease. It is brought to your attention that the drug used to treat your child's disease costs less than $1 to produce but you would have to pay more than $1,000 to purchase it (an amount that is impossible for you to pay). Tragically, you watch your child die as you are consumed with grief, confusion, and resentment for global pricing structures.Of course, pharmaceutical drugs cannot be free. Companies need incentives to conduct research and to increase research and development. Without this incentive, unfortunately, we cannot be assured...
Source: PharmaGossip - October 16, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
David Healy appeals
Two years ago, the European Ombudsman ruled that the European Medicines Agency should open up access to Clinical Trial Data for anyone who applied from anywhere in the world.
Six months ago two US pharmaceutical companies AbbVie and InterMune took a legal action against EMA that has closed down access to all trial data for all drugs for all doctors and researchers anywhere in the world..
Most people have not heard of AbbVie. Until recently they were Abbott Laboratories, one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world.
They make Humira, a monoclonal antibody used for Rheumatoid Arthritis, Croh...
Source: PharmaGossip - September 29, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Petition by Professor David Healy - please sign if you agree
Let us see Drug Data! Drug hazards are not “trade secrets”!Drug companies maximize the sales of new drugs by hyping their benefits while downplaying significant risks. In 2010 the European Medicines Agency began releasing patient-level data from the clinical trials used to approve new medicines in Europe – a development hailed by American, and European researchers and researchers around the world as a major step towards drug safety.This process has been shut down by a lawsuit taken by two American corporations – AbbVie, makers of Humira, the number one selling medication in the world with projected sales of $10 bil...
Source: PharmaGossip - September 15, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Pharmalot... Pharmalittle... Good Morning
Hello, everyone, and nice to see you again, especially after protracted technical problems that disrupted service yesterday. We apologize for the snafu and look forward to resuming the usual menu of interesting items today. Toward that end, we are brewing our mandatory cup of stimulation and have assembled a few tidbits below. So please dig in. Meanwhile, we hope your day is productive and rewarding. And as always, do stay in touch. We like to hear about fascinating developments...
Chinese Hospital Staff Punished For Kickbacks (Bloomberg News)
Aurobindo Employees Protest At Government Office (The Hindu)
New Roche Leukemia ...
Source: Pharmalot - July 24, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: esilverman Source Type: blogs
Rheumatoid treatment options
When I was diagnosed with rheumatoid last fall, I was already fairly aware of treatment options as my mother has had RA since 1989. The current theory for treatment is to hit it fast and early to slow progression and joint deformities.I was immediately put on plaquenile and prednisone. Plaquenile is an old drug from the 1930s or so and has successfully been proven to treat RA but it is slow working - months to have an effect - so usually prednisone is given for a brief period of time to get the swelling and pain down faster. That was bad news for me because I turned out to be allergic to both.I was then put on methot...
Source: Caroline's Breast Cancer Blog - June 12, 2013 Category: Cancer Tags: treatment options stress rheumatoid arthritis Source Type: blogs
AstraZeneca, As Expected, Pulls the Plug
Late last year came word that the AstraZeneca/Rigel compound, fostamatinib, had failed to show any benefit versus AbbVie's Humira in the clinic. Now they've gritted their corporate teeth and declared failure, sending the whole program back to Rigel.
I've lost count of how many late-stage clinical wipeouts this makes for AZ, but it sure is a lot of them. The problem is, it's hard to say just how much of this is drug discovery itself (after all, we have brutal failure rates even when things are going well), how much of it is just random bad luck, or what might be due to something more fundamental about target and compound s...
Source: In the Pipeline - June 4, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Business and Markets Source Type: blogs
The AbbVie Culture Change Continues: 100 Scientists Will Be Laid Off
Less than a month after AbbVie quietly disclosed that its chief scientific officer is unexpectedly retiring (see this), the drugmaker is now shaking up R&D and will layoff approximately 100 scientists from its pain discovery program in neuroscience, according to sources. And an AbbVie spokesman confirmed the move.
The R&D changes, which the spokesman says will also involve adding some 90 jobs in such therapeutic categories as dermatology, gastroenterology and renal, are part of a larger transformation that AbbVie is undergoing after being split off earlier this from Abbott Laboratories (ABT).
Faced with patent expi...
Source: Pharmalot - May 30, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: esilverman Source Type: blogs
The Best New Doctor Reaction Yet
He laughed.I went to see a physicians assistant in the rheumatology department yesterday about the bump on my arm (not on a log). He was a very nice man and spent some time talking to me.He said what I have is probably a ganglion cyst and he could stick a needle in it and drain it but it might come back. I said lymphedema arm. He said 'oops, no needle'. I said when I move my thumb around it makes it hurt more, he said I could give you a thumb splint but that would make your arm swell up.So we left it that I will monitor admire it, and if it does become problematic, I would be referred to a surgeon to see if there was anyth...
Source: Caroline's Breast Cancer Blog - May 3, 2013 Category: Cancer Tags: treatment options ganglion cyst rheumatoid arthritis doctor appointments Source Type: blogs
Six ways Big Pharma manipulates consumers - Salon
This article originally appeared on AlterNet.
The blockbuster pill profit party is over for Big Pharma. Bestselling pills like Lipitor, Seroquel, Zyprexa, Singular and Concerta have gone off patent and sites which their ads sustained are withering on the vine. WebMD, for example, the voice of Pharma on the Web, with a former Pfizer exec serving as CEO, announced it would cut 250 positions in December.
But don’t worry, Wall Street. Pharma isn’t going to deliver disappointing earnings just because it has little or no new drugs coming online and has failed at the very reason for its existence. Here are six new Pharma ma...
Source: PharmaGossip - April 28, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Alex Lomas says to Abbvie "Show me the data"!
Personal View
I’m a patient: show me the trial data
BMJ 2013; 346 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.f2336 (Published 16 April 2013)
Cite this as: BMJ 2013;346:f2336
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Alex Lomas, patient, London
alex@alexlomas.com
The patient Alex Lomas is taking a biological drug for Crohn’s disease, and he wants to know why the maker is trying to prevent disclosure of trial data that may well affect him
I have an obsession with data. I have instruments in my house so I know how hot each room is and to warn me i...
Source: PharmaGossip - April 19, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
This has been a bad week
This has not been a good week for me and a lot of other people. First off all, the marathon bombing on Monday turned lives upside down. And it seems to be the only thing on network television these days. All my regular shows I record so I don't have to stay up late, have been superseded by more news coverage showing the same things over and over again.I have a very busy schedule this week. I had a meeting after work Tuesday that went relatively well. I met with my boss at the job I am leaving to talk about transition and was pleasantly surprised to find out they have two replacements for me - which is good for them and mak...
Source: Caroline's Breast Cancer Blog - April 18, 2013 Category: Cancer Tags: needles stress medical treatment rheumatoid arthritis Source Type: blogs
AstraZeneca's Nasty Numbers
So everyone watching the pharma business has been hearing about how AstraZeneca has all kinds of problems - drug failures, big patent expirations, too much spending on too little output, one damn thing after another. Well, here's the evidence today. Everyone knew that numbers like these were coming, and here they are.
Sales will fall by a “mid- to high-single digit percentage” at constant exchange rates in 2013, the London- based company said today in a statement. Analysts had estimated a decline of about 3 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The company also said earnings fell for a fourth straight quar...
Source: In the Pipeline - January 31, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Business and Markets Source Type: blogs
