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July 24, 2008 1:24:53 PM CDT

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Stories related to: pharmaceutical companies

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Stories 1 - 20 of 33

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  • July 2008

    • Pharma, Tech Kill Early Gains

      newser  |  MarketWatch  |  Jul 21, 08 3:40 PM CDT

      Pharma, Tech Kill Early Gains

      The markets failed to hold on to early-session gains today as oil rose above $131 per barrel and the overall economic outlook remained downcast, MarketWatch reports. The Dow lost 29.23 points to close at 11,467.34, the Nasdaq fell 3.25 to 2,279.53, and the S&P 500 dropped just 0.68, settling at 1,260.00. More »

      Tags

      Google  • S&P 500  • Nasdaq  • Dow Jones Industrial Average  • Bank of America  • pharmaceutical companies  • Merck  • Schering Plough

    • America: Land of Doggy Doping

      newser  |  New York Times  |  Jul 10, 08 7:07 AM CDT

      America: Land of Doggy Doping

      Americans spent $49 billion on their pets last year, with an ever-growing percentage paying for treatment of  behavioral issues with tailor-made psychotropics, reports James Vlahos in the New York Times Magazine . Frustrated owners are feeding dogs drugs like Reconcile—beef-flavored Prozac—-for "mental illnesses that eerily resemble human ones," from separation anxiety to compusive disorder. There are even doggy diet pills. More »

      Tags

      pets  • New York Times  • pharmaceutical companies  • pharmaceutical industry  • Prozac  • veterinarian  • medicating pets

  • June 2008

    • Big Pharma Sickens Universities

      newser  |  Chronicle of Higher Education  |  Jun 22, 08 6:07 PM CDT

      Big Pharma Sickens Universities

      Weak legislation allows professors to collect huge under-the-table payments from Big Pharma, and it’s time to fight back, Dan Greenberg writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education . Pharmaceutical companies pay professors to shill drugs and lend their names to industry research, and the only oversight is an honor-system mechanism requiring profs to report outside income to the university—not to a federal agency. More »

      Tags

      ethics  • pharmaceutical companies  • university  • pharmaceutical industry  • academia  • pharma  • academic research

    • Deal Delays Generic Lipitor Until 2011

      newser  |  New York Times  |  Jun 18, 08 5:11 PM CDT

      Deal Delays Generic Lipitor Until 2011

      Pfizer has struck a deal with an Indian generic drug maker to delay a cheaper version of Lipitor in the US until November 2011. The agreement limiting generic versions of the cholesterol-lowering drug will translate into billions more in profits for Pfizer, the New York Times reports. Lipitor, the world's best-selling medicine, costs about $3 a day; a generic version will likely be less than $1. More »

      Tags

      pharmaceutical companies  • Pfizer  • pharmaceutical industry  • cholesterol lowering drug  • Lipitor

  • April 2008

    • Deadly Heparin Found in 11 Nations

      newser  |  New York Times  |  Apr 22, 08 7:17 AM CDT

      Deadly Heparin Found in 11 Nations

      The FDA has traced a contaminated blood thinner from a Chinese factory to 11 countries, the New York Times reports. Severe reactions to the contaminated heparin have been linked to the deaths of 81 Americans, but it wasn't immediately clear if the drug may have triggered fatalities in other countries. Chinese officials have denied that the contamination caused any deaths and have demanded to be allowed to inspect the US plant where the heparin was packaged. More »

      Tags

      China  • FDA  • pharmaceutical companies  • Heparin  • Baxter International  • Changzhou SPL

    • Merck Used Ghostwriters to Draft Rosy Vioxx Studies

      newser  |  Wall Street Journal  |  Apr 15, 08 7:51 PM CDT

      Merck Used Ghostwriters to Draft Rosy Vioxx Studies

      Merck used its own ghostwriters to draft articles minimizing risks of its drug Vioxx, then found medical researchers to lend their names to the research, the Wall Street Journal reports. Merck, which pulled the painkiller from shelves four years ago over heart-attack risks, rejects the claims as "misleading." They appear in tomorrow's edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association . More »

      Tags

      ethics  • pharmaceutical companies  • Merck  • Vioxx  • medical studies  • JAMA

    • Doc: Merck Fudged Minutes of Meeting

      newser  |  Bloomberg  |  Apr 12, 08 9:33 AM CDT

      Doc: Merck Fudged Minutes of Meeting

      Merck's "minutes" of a meeting of heart doctors discussing cholesterol drug Vytorin were created a month after the meeting and distorted the viewpoints of the experts, one panel member changes. The drug company submitted the document to congressional investigators probing its two-year delay in releasing a report saying the drug didn't work any better than a much cheaper generic one, Bloomberg reports. More »

      Tags

      pharmaceutical companies  • Merck  • drug companies  • clinical trials  • cholesterol lowering drug  • Schering Plough  • Vytorin

  • March 2008
  • February 2008

    • Heparin Supply Chain Shaky in China

      newser  |  New York Times  |  Feb 28, 08 2:07 PM CST

      Heparin Supply Chain Shaky in China

      With at least four US patients dead and hundreds suffering complications from the blood-thinning drug heparin, the New York Times follows the supply chain back to Chinese slaughterhouses that deal with the pig intestines that provide raw material for the drug. Though companies say the chain is secure, the Times finds it vulnerable to contamination and lack of oversight. More »

      Tags

      China  • medicine  • pharmaceutical companies  • pharmaceutical  • pharmaceutical industry  • Heparin  • Baxter International  • blood thinner  • supply chain  • Changzhou SPL

    • Vaccines, Medicines to Treat Addiction on the Way

      newser  |  Newsweek  |  Feb 25, 08 1:45 PM CST

      Vaccines, Medicines to Treat Addiction on the Way

      It's been decades since scientists recognized that addiction is a disease, not just a lack of willpower, but only now are potential treatments coming online that address what Newsweek calls "a chronic, relapsing brain disorder to be managed with all the tools at medicine's disposal." The magazine surveys recent breakthroughs, from pills that prevent intoxication to vaccines that turn antibodies against addictive agents. More »

      Tags

      drugs  • pharmaceutical companies  • addiction  • neuroscience  • Alcoholics Anonymous

    • FDA Delay Cost 22,000 Lives: Doctor

      newser  |  CBS  |  Feb 15, 08 7:53 AM CST

      FDA Delay Cost 22,000 Lives: Doctor

      A prominent researcher who revealed widespread fatalities associated with the heart surgery drug Trasylol says 22,000 people died because of the FDA's delay in blowing the whistle on the drug after his study was published. Drugmaker Bayer also failed to disclose negative results of its own study. In a 60 Minutes interview to air Sunday, Dr. Dennis Mangano says the FDA waited more than a year to pull Trasylol—until after it was banned in Germany. More »

      Tags

      FDA  • pharmaceutical companies  • heart surgery  • Trasylol  • Bayer Pharmaceuticals  • kidney failure

    • Merck Will Pay $650M to End Discount Probes

      newser  |  Wall Street Journal  |  Feb 7, 08 3:59 PM CST

      Merck Will Pay $650M to End Discount Probes

      Drug company Merck will dish out $650 million to resolve lawsuits and probes into marketing schemes, the Wall Street Journal reports. Central to the investigations is the company’s “nominal pricing,” which slashed some drug prices by 90% for hospitals but hid the discounts from Medicaid, even though federal law demands that drug companies offer the government program their lowest prices. More »

      Tags

      lawsuit  • drugs  • pharmaceutical companies  • hospitals  • Merck  • Vioxx  • probe  • Zocor

  • January 2008

    • Antidepressant Studies Distort Drugs' Usefulness

      newser  |  Wall Street Journal  |  Jan 16, 08 9:37 PM CST

      Antidepressant Studies Distort Drugs' Usefulness

      Roughly half of the medical studies involving antidepressants that found little or no effect on patients have gone unpublished or had their findings mischaracterized as positive, a new study reveals. The emphasis on publishing only studies with glowing reviews gives patients and doctors a false sense of the effectiveness of drugs such as Zoloft and Effexor, the Wall Street Journal reports. More »

      Tags

      FDA  • doctor  • pharmaceutical companies  • antidepressant  • Pfizer  • patients  • Wyeth  • New England Journal of Medicine  • Zoloft  • Effexor

    • Merck May Pay $700M for Schizophrenia Drug

      newser  |  Reuters  |  Jan 3, 08 11:42 AM CST

      Merck May Pay $700M for Schizophrenia Drug

      Merck today finalized a deal worth as much as $700 million to license a schizophrenia drug from Swiss biotech firm Addex Pharmaceuticals. Addex will get $22 million up front, and qualify for another $680 million in milestone payments. Such licensing deals are growing commonplace, Reuters reports, as big pharma turns to little biotech to refill drug pipelines. More »

      Tags

      pharmaceutical companies  • Merck  • schizophrenia  • biotechnology  • psychotherapy

  • December 2007

    • Bristol-Myers to Slash Jobs, Shut Plants

      newser  |  Wall Street Journal  |  Dec 5, 07 6:09 PM CST

      Bristol-Myers to Slash Jobs, Shut Plants

      Bristol-Myers Squibb said today it will lay off 10% of its work force—totaling 4,300 jobs—and close or sell half its 27 factories in a plan to save $1.5 billion by 2010, the Wall Street Journal reports. The firm also will sell its medical-imaging division and possibly its wound-care and nutritional-supplements businesses as it focuses on drugmaking, its strongest suit. More »

      Tags

      pharmaceutical companies  • downsizing  • Bristol Myers Squibb

  • November 2007

    • Lack of Info Plagues Docs Treating Kids

      newser  |  Washington Post  |  Nov 23, 07 8:12 PM CST

      Lack of Info Plagues Docs Treating Kids

      A dearth of information on the effects of prescription drugs on children is putting millions of kids at risk, the Washington Post reports. Two-thirds of the medications prescribed to kids haven't been tested on them, and those that have been tested often produce unexpected results: A migraine drug that works on adults causes strokes in kids. And asthma inhaler stunts growth. A pain-killer patch can deliver a fatal overdose to a child. More »

      Tags

      children  • FDA  • pharmaceutical companies  • prescription drugs  • pediatrics  • American Academy of Pediatrics

    • Big Pharma Goes East to Test Drugs

      newser  |  Time  |  Nov 19, 07 8:09 PM CST

      Big Pharma Goes East to Test Drugs

      Big Pharma is testing more drugs in China, where studies cost less and a big, aging population has more chronic ailments, Time reports. But critics question the country's product safety and ponder the fate of tested patients. Even Big Pharma is concerned—about intellectual property rights—but the lure of cheap testing and low salaries inspired them to double R&D in China last year. More »

      Tags

      China  • drugs  • pharmaceutical companies  • prescription  • drug trials

    • Battle Brews in Pharma's Market

      newser  |  New York Times  |  Nov 3, 07 6:43 PM CDT

      Battle Brews in Pharma's Market

      Pfizer is trying to stave off its own heart attack now that its flagship cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor faces stiff competition from a cheaper generic. Lipitor is still patent-protected, but a very similar drug called Zocor isn't, and since a generic version called simvastatin hit the market, many doctors and insurers are steering patients away from Lipitor to the cheaper alternative, the New York Times says. More »

      Tags

      heart attack  • pharmaceutical companies  • cholesterol  • Pfizer  • health care industry  • insurance companies  • medical treatment  • statins  • Lipitor  • generic drugs  • Zocor  • LDL

  • October 2007

    • More Docs Just Say No to Pharma Reps

      newser  |  Newsweek  |  Oct 23, 07 3:06 PM CDT

      More Docs Just Say No to Pharma Reps

      More doctors, hospitals, and medical schools are limiting or barring visits from drug-company reps as the calls become more frequent and concerns grow that they may influence prescribing. An organization of doctors who pledge not to welcome pharma reps has only 800 members, but institutional players—including some states—are taking steps to restrict marketing, Newsweek reports. More »

      Tags

      drugs  • doctor  • marketing  • pharmaceutical companies  • consumer prices

  • August 2007

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