Health Secretary promises to end postcode lottery ban by some PCTs on certain...
Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, has promised to crack down on Primary Care Trusts that refuse to buy certain drugs because of their cost, despite the drugs’ approval by NICE (the National...
View ArticleAstraZeneca to axe over 10% of its worldwide jobs as patent cliff effects...
AstraZeneca has announced that it is making over 7,000 of its 61,000 worldwide staff redundant as a cost-cutting measure, in light of its falling revenues and the patent cliff. The patent cliff is the...
View ArticleNICE produces best practice guidance to avoid postcode prescribing
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) – the body which provides guidance on what to use when diagnosing, treating and preventing disease within the UK, has produced a new set...
View ArticleGSK chief warns of European market trailing US and Japan as a centre for...
The GSK chief executive, Andrew Witty, has sent a chilling warning to Europe that it risks losing key innovative pharma companies as the market is hampered by the euro crisis, which is seeing prices...
View ArticleDepartment of Health PPRS Report shows commitment to UK pharma industry but...
The Department of Health has underlined its commitment to the UK’s pharmaceutical and life sciences industry, but it has also highlighted how the prices of products are less in the UK than comparative...
View ArticleMerck the latest to announce job cuts as pharma industry faces the “patent...
Merck, the international pharmaceutical giant, has become the latest pharma company to announce job cuts and restructuring. At this stage, it has not said how many jobs will go or where that will...
View ArticleCalls for stronger international counterfeiting laws after fake Avastin drug...
There have been calls for stronger anti-counterfeiting laws after fakes of Roche’s Avastin cancer drugs have been found in the US. An investigation has revealed several different distributors involved...
View ArticleBig pharma says “greedy” 11% of wholesalers and pharmacists are the cause of...
Some wholesalers and pharmacists in the drug supply market have been accused by manufacturers and some other pharmacists of being “greedy” after figures have suggested that they are the reason behind...
View ArticleGovernment pushes for telehealth to make cost savings
The Government could save £1.2bn over a five year period if the take up of telehealth increases. Paul Burlow, the Care Minister, wants to see three million patients with long-term conditions to...
View ArticleHigh Court wouldn’t infer fixed exchange rate for international contract that...
P&G supplied products to S. The contract provided for prices stipulated in euros, with payment to be made in pounds. There was no mention in the contract itself of any particular exchange rate....
View ArticleGSK gives welcome boost to UK life sciences industry and thumbs up to Budget...
GSK has given a massive boost to the UK life sciences industry with an announcement on the back of the Budget that it will spent £500m on a new manufacturing plant and create 1,000 jobs in the UK....
View ArticleGSK and J&J launch biotech investment fund
GSK and Johnson & Johnson have launched a fund to invest in biotech start-up companies. They are doing this in conjunction with Index Futures. The pharma and healthcare giants are each investing...
View ArticleUK pharma market to have real growth of less than 1% from 2010 to 2015
The UK pharma market is likely to experience real growth of 0.4% between 2010 and 2015. This is still better than a 3.2% real terms fall in Europe for the same period. The UK will be badly hit by the...
View ArticleMPs mount pressure on health ministers over pharmaceutical supply chain problems
Pressure is mounting on Government health ministers over the issue of shortages in the pharmaceutical supply chain. About 20 MPs have now signed up to a Parliamentary motion calling for urgent...
View ArticleGovernment offers £4m funding as competition prize to reward innovation in...
The Government is offering a prize of £2m each in two separate competitions for innovation in healthcare. One is a solution to change people’s behaviour to reduce the impact of obesity and alcohol...
View ArticlePharma patents drop significantly according to Withers and Rogers report
The number of patents filed by big pharma has fallen dramatically according to figures published by Withers & Rogers LLP, the patent and trade mark agents. The top 10 pharma companies filed just...
View ArticleAll Party Parliamentary Pharmacy Group hears conflicting points of view in...
The All Party Parliamentary Pharmacy Group has heard conflicting evidence over the supply chain shortage that is afflicting the UK pharma industry. On the one hand, the Association for British...
View ArticleEvidence of patent cliff underway with 2011 fall in NHS drug spend
The first evidence has been emerging of the effects of the patent cliff, with NHS spending on pharmaceuticals falling from £8.83bn in 2010 to £8.81bn in 2011, according to figures from the NHS...
View Article£180m fund for SMEs in life sciences industry launched
The £180m fund for small and medium sized enterprises in the life sciences industry is being made available from 30 April, the Government has announced. Under the Biomedical Catalyst, the Medical...
View Article3D printer development may lead to make-your-own medicines
Glasgow University is pioneering the use of technology in which 3D printers are used to create drugs. Ultimately, they expect the technology to be used in customised drugs. The researchers said they...
View ArticleABPI launches new partnership team to work closer with providing greater...
The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry has announced a new regional team to work closer with the NHS to bring innovative treatments quicker to NHS patients. The ABPI is delighted about...
View ArticleGSK accuses NICE of failure to support new drugs
GSK, the UK’s largest pharmaceutical company, has accused the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) of failing to do enough to recognise the value of new medicines and encourage...
View ArticleIndependent Pharmacy Federation calls for 100 MPs to back an early day motion...
The Independent Pharmacy Federation, which represents many independent pharmacists in the UK, has called for at least 100 MPs to back a Parliamentary early day motion tabled by Keith Vaz MP to address...
View ArticleDepartment of Health agrees to survey pharmacists to address medicine...
The Department of Health has agreed to consider surveying community pharmacies to find out the impact of medicine supply shortages. The situation is so important that the All Party Pharmacy Group has...
View ArticlePatent cliff damage shown in Pfizer’s results after Lipitor lost revenues
Pfizer has suffered a big dent in both its revenues and earnings as it has felt the fall brunt of its Lipitor cholesterol blockbuster drug coming off patent. In the first quarter this year, the...
View ArticleGSK says it will not make a move for AZ as big pharma struggles to cope with...
GSK, the biggest UK pharmaceuticals company, has ruled out a bid for the second biggest AstraZeneca. The GSK chief executive, Andrew Witty, said that such a move would be distracting. He believes that...
View ArticleThreat to pharma sector innovation as University of York recommends lowering...
At a time when innovative pharma sector companies are facing the squeeze with pressure on pricing and high costs of bringing new products to market, they have now received further bad news. The...
View ArticlePatent cliff takes toll as Pfizer stops marketing world’s biggest selling drug
Pfizer has announced that it is stopping marketing its Lipitor product. The cholesterol-lowering drug is the biggest selling drug in the world. But Pfizer is suffering after Lipitor’s patent expired a...
View ArticleGPs make mistakes in one in six prescriptions
Doctors are making mistakes in an astonishing one in six prescriptions, according to a General Medical Council study of 1,200 patients. The GMC added that many of the mistakes were thankfully either...
View ArticleParliament enquiry report warns of real health risks from delays in medicines
Patients in England are suffering from dangerous shortages in supplies of medicines and the cause is wholesalers taking advantage of legitimate rights to parallel import the medicines into other...
View ArticleAbiraterone drug approval granted by NICE – but at what price?
Abiraterone, the new drug that extends the lives of people with advanced prostate cancer by three months, has been approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). This...
View ArticleBristol Myers Squibb loses one third of its revenue overnight as Plavix the...
Bristol Myers Squibb has lost one third of its revenues overnight, as its anti-platelet therapy, Plavix, has become the latest blockbuster drug of the big pharma companies to see its patent expire....
View ArticleNICE to be stripped of role of directing NHS on cost-effectiveness of drugs
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) will lose its current role of directing the National Health Service on the cost-effectiveness of drugs. Its role will be replaced by the...
View ArticleRoyal Pharmaceutical Society calls for change in EU law to prohibit export of...
The chair of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Lindsey Gilpin, has called for a change to the European Union laws that permit parallel exporting of products – ie the purchase of drugs from one cheaper...
View ArticleAdvocate General likes the medicine handed out to AstraZeneca by lower court...
Advocate General Mazak has recommended that the European Court of Justice follows the European Union’s lower court, the General Court, in approving the European Commission’s decision and giving a €53m...
View ArticleBig Pharma Join Resources for TB Drug Discovery
Abbott, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Sanofi have joined a unique partnership with several research institutions and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in which they...
View ArticleBAPW promises to do “everything” to ensure drugs get to patients during Olympics
The British Association of Pharmaceutical Wholesalers has promised that its members will do “everything” they can to ensure drugs reach patients quickly during the Olympic and Paralympic period. This...
View ArticleInnovation crisis – what crisis?
For years, Big Pharma has been saying that they have been suffering from an innovation crisis. The reality is that the number of new drugs licensed each year has remained at between 15 and 25 over the...
View Article90% of pharmacists see loss-leaders as dangerous
90% of pharmacists who responded to a survey by the magazine Chemist + Druggist have said that they see loss leaders by pharmacists as dangerous for independent pharmacists. Only 10% thought loss...
View ArticleInterpol seizes over US$10 million of counterfeit and illicit drugs in...
In its mission to combat the sale of illegal medicines, Operation Pangea was launched by Interpol and its partners, consisting of customers, health regulators, national police forces and the public...
View ArticleA small step for Cipla, a giant step for Generic Kind
The Indian generics company, Cipla, has grabbed the headlines not once but twice over the last few weeks for pushing the generic cause onwards and leaving big pharma feeling the effects in its wake....
View ArticleABPI release statement on Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Pharma”
The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (“ABPI”), the body that represents the big pharma suppliers, has released its reaction to the controversial new book, “Bad Pharma” by Ben...
View ArticleSupplementary Protection Certificates – High Court refers questions to be...
Actavis v Sanofi, High Court To the frustration of the parties and judge alike, the High Court has decided to refer particular questions on the interpretation of Article 3(a),(c) and (d) of the...
View ArticleBen Goldacre challenges ABPI’s statement on his book, “Bad Pharma”
Ben Goldacre has stated in his “bad science” blog on 11 October 2012 that, “The ABPI claims that all the problems in my book are “historical”. This claim is simply untrue.” Ben Goldacre goes on to set...
View ArticleAstraZeneca secures strategic partnership with Charles River Laboratories
Charles River Laboratories International Inc. (“Charles River”) has today announced that it has been selected by AstraZeneca as AstraZeneca’s preferred strategic partner in a three year agreement to...
View ArticleSupplemental Protection Certificates and the “First Authorisation” Rule
AstraZeneca AB v Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks, High Court; Case numbers CH/2012/0232 and CH/2012/0489 The High Court has once again decided to refer questions of...
View ArticleUK Government awards £1 billion in funding to Science and Research Projects
The UK Government has injected a further £1 billion of funding for seven new projects in science and research. This newest round of projects takes The UK Research Partnership Investment Fund’s (“RPIF”)...
View ArticleLord Howe praises community pharmacy at the Pharmacy Business Awards 2012
At this year’s Pharmacy Business Awards, chief guest Lord Howe proclaimed his admiration for community pharmacists across the nation for being supreme healthcare clinicians, declaring that “[t]o the...
View ArticleThe Medical Research Council to release £7m of funding to AstraZeneca...
The Medical Research Council (“MRC”) has announced that it will be committing £7 million of funding to 15 academic drug research projects. The 15 projects were selected by the MRC on the basis of...
View ArticleEMA additional information demand puts increased pressure on pharma businesses
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has asked pharma businesses to update and improve the quality of information on all products which are submitted to the EMA by the end of December. The additional...
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