Posts Tagged ‘ Big Pharma ’
Vaccines: Just in Time for Big Pharma
January 1st, 2010. By janem
Big Pharma breathed a big sigh of relief when it realized vaccines can give a lot more bang for the buck than many “blockbuster” drugs. For pharmaceutical companies like Wyeth (now owned by Pfizer), Glaxo, Sanofi-Aventis and Novartis AG, pandemic flu threats–H1N1 in particular–couldn’t have come at a better time.
For instance, Wyeth’s pediatric pneumococcal vaccine Prevnar makes over $3 billion in annual sales–that should help cover product liability claims for its diet drug Fen-phen. (To date, the drug giant has set aside $21 billion to cover claims.)
And Merck & Co, already making shingles and cervical cancer vaccines, recently got into the US market via a deal to distribute seasonal flu vaccine made by Australia’s CSL Ltd, just in time to pay $4.85 billion in its Vioxx claims.
“Vaccines, vaccines, wonderful business,” quipped Chris Viehbacher, CEO of Sanofi-Aventis, which anticipates earnings of $6 billion in vaccine revenues this year and double its sales by 2013. In the last quarter of 2009, its H1N1 vaccines sales reached $500 million.
Novartis expected to generate $700m in fourth-quarter sales alone from its H1N1 vaccine, but GlaxoSmithKline is the main player in vaccines, holding 22 percent of the global market, and is set to cash in with Brazil, China and India as their burgeoning economies spell bigger budgets for healthcare spending. Glaxo is betting big time on the vaccine business: it just purchased a vaccine operation in Quebec for $1.4 billion, which may tighten the purse strings after paying almost $1billion to resolve lawsuits over its antidepressant Paxil.
Other big spenders are Abbott Laboratories ($6.6 billion on Belgian flu vaccine maker Solvay) and Johnson & Johnson (it just bought 18 percent of Dutch vaccine firm Crucell). “More companies are investing in vaccines as a way of diversifying away from prescription drugs,” says Michael Boyd of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations. “New technologies, such as cell culture, are enabling them to produce more sophisticated vaccines.”
With nearly 1 billion doses of H1N1 vaccine ordered in 2009, analysts predict the global vaccine industry will reach $40 billion by 2012: Cha ching. Perhaps this means we won’t see so many “blockbuster” new drugs entering the market in the next few years. After all, product liability litigation has been expensive.
Online Pharma Advertising…can’t wait
November 17th, 2009. By AbiK
Actually I can. You know how drug advertisements look in magazines—it can be like 3 pages of text (aka “product disclosure”) that runs on and on and interrupts whatever you’re reading. Heaven help you if you’re reading Reader’s Digest where 3 pages suddenly becomes 5 due to the smaller format. And if you do take a moment to glance at the ad, you’ve got to be thinking that something that takes that much explaining maybe shouldn’t be taken at all. Be that as it may, enter the brave new world of online advertising…
Well, there’s just no room online to be putting all that junk. Those tightly designed banner ads would become full-page ads with all the disclosure notices included and I guarantee that after coming face to face with a few “impressions” of those, you’ll never click on that website again.
And don’t the drug companies know it. But they need to be pushing their wares online—that’s where all the “growth” is these days. So now, get this—the drug industry’s big guys like Eli Lilly and Pfizer are turning to the FDA for guidance on how to push their goods online. Why? The current FDA guidelines for advertising in traditional print media (magazines, newspapers) or t.v. require all that disclosure information is shown prominently. But there aren’t really any guidelines set for new media—so everyone’s playing by the rules of traditional media, and clearly that’s not good.
Not good for who? Big pharma, but also the bigger online media companies. See the online
Drug Firms Continue to Practice Unethical Marketing
October 6th, 2009. By janem
What’s it going to take to make unscrupulous drug companies come clean? Now we have another drug scandal—this time it’s Seroquel. In 1997 Seroquel was approved by the FDA and at the same time, Study 15 showed that weight gain and diabetes were seen in study patients. But in its infinite wisdom, the FDA said it does not have the authority to place such studies in the public domain; instead the agency deemed the drug “safe and effective”. It’s mind-boggling how a drug company can manipulate a government agency and control publicly available research about their products.
Pharmaceutical companies are supposed to announce publicly when a clinical trial is underway and its goals, but according to a study by the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, many tests are conducted without this disclosure and selective results—hiding the results of negative trials and only publishing studies that show their products in a positive light—is widespread.
In the Pharma World, Begging for Forgiveness is Much More Profitable
September 5th, 2009. By Hunter West
Just when, did the medical community begin serving the pharmaceutical industry—instead of the other way around?
The recent fine levied against Pfizer for various marketing sins involving a handful of prescription drugs may well be the largest ($2.3 billion), and most comprehensive (Pfizer was required to sign an agreement of conduct that has been described as being the most stringent in history)—but it is by no means the first such case. Pharmaceutical companies have for years been bending the rules and circumventing regulations by promoting drugs off label (that’s illegal), and other unsavory activities, all in the quest for the mighty greenback.
Doctors have been lavished with gifts in exchange for prescribing someone’s drug. They accept ‘consulting fees’ from pharmaceuticals in exchange for lecturing, in their own words mind you, on the benefits of a particular drug. It’s all perfectly legal, but it shouldn’t be.
And that’s one of the many wrongs percolating in a health care system that’s severely broken and in need of overhaul.
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