Topic: Pharma

Most consumers don't think doctors should have such a tight relationship with big pharma, according to the second annual prescription drug survey conducted by Consumer Reports National Research Center ... more

In a recent note, I cited evidence for the lack of innovation in Big Pharma, at least from the perspective of stock market investors (see: Some Evidence that Big Pharma Has Lost Its Innovation Mojo). ... more

Contract research organizations (CROs) such as Covance and Charles River, particularly those with expertise in clinical and anatomic pathology, have been in the forefront of efforts to develop global ... more

Think quickly when I say "innovation " in relation to healthcare. What types of organizations come quickly to your mind. Hospitals? No. The pharmaceutical industry? No. I personally think of sectors ... more

An unlicensed physician who conned 134 chronically ill patients over the last four years into undergoing experimental stem cell procedures he claimed could cure diseases like multiple sclerosis and ce ... more

Is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doing enough to keep its advisory panels clear of conflicts of interest? Recent disclosures suggest it isn't. An FDA advisory panel member who voted against t ... more

This is a guest blog note written by Steve Potts, PhD. Steve is the CEO of Flagship Biosciences, a pathologist-owned CRO and provider of digital pathology services in the pharmaceutical and medical ... more

This is the second portion of guest blog note written by Steve Potts, PhD. The first was posted yesterday (see: Veterinary Pathologists Adopting Digital Pathology Faster than MDs). Steve is the CEO o ... more

I recently posted two guest blog notes by Steve Potts, Ph.D., focusing on the more rapid adoption of digital pathology by veterinary pathologists than MD pathologists (see: Veterinary Pathologists Ado ... more

If you #8217;re like me and you go to way too many scientific and professional meetings, it #8217;s easy to get jaded. I am trying to limit my travel to stuff that 1) I can afford; and 2) actually in ... more

We are witnessing the emergence of what a recent article in the New York Times called Big Medicine (see: More Doctors Giving Up Private Practices). Simply put, it consists of the following triad: (1) ... more

Pharma sales reps are finding an increasingly hostile world out there. The fraction of doctors willing to meet reps regularly has dropped significantly. And the group unwilling to see reps at all has ... more

Following the lead of major medical journals adopting a uniform conflict-of-interest disclosure for researchers last year, the Council of Medical Specialty Societies has created a new ethics code aime ... more

Lobbyists representing the many who profit from our $2.6 trillion health care industry spent millions in the war over healthcare reform. Yet National Journal Contributing Editor Eliza Newlin Carney su ... more

No doubt you have seen some of the numbers about the assault that corporate lobbyists mounted to try to block health care reform: In 2009 spending on health-care-related lobbying and TV advertising to ... more

I loved the lead to a story that ran in the New York Times yesterday: ��With the government ��s blessing, a drug giant is about to expand the market for its blockbuster cholesterol medication, Crestor ... more

The pharmaceutical industry has been undergoing major changes lately including the transfer of a portion of its basic research effort to contract research organizations (CROs) (see: CROs Continue to P ... more

It seems to me that there #39;s no obvious end-point to the dirty tricks that pharmaceutical companies will attempt to flog their products. I have previously raised the issues of under-the-table payme ... more

An executive with Eli Lilly has accepted a job with Harvard Medical School that will entail studying the relationship between the school's researchers and the pharmaceutical industry. William Chin, wh ... more

While the restrictions of gifts and other interactions between pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers have grown tighter in recent years, a proposed New York law will add almost 10 pages of ... more

When explaining why the voters of Massachusetts turned Ted Kennedy ��s seat over to a Republican, some commentators are suggesting that voters were appalled by the corruption they saw in Washington as ... more

As part of a larger crackdown on hospital pharma waste practices, New York's attorney general has reached an agreement with five healthcare facilities to stop "disposing" their pharma waste into the N ... more

Is it possible for one of the world's largest and most influential drug companies to endorse a continuing education program for one of the most well-known universities in the U.S., with no strings att ... more

The story of the ��Norway Solution �� to hospital infections reminded me of a letter that I received in the fall, written by Svein U. Toverud, a Norwegian who lived in the U.S. from 1969 to 2003. Whi ... more

��Aker University Hospital is a dingy place to heal. The floors are streaked and scratched. A light layer of dust coats the blood pressure monitors. A faint stench of urine and bleach wafts from a pi ... more

After much scrutiny over its lack of a solid conflict-of-interest policy, Massachusetts-based Partners HealthCare finally bit the bullet, banning stock payments and limiting fees to high-ranking docto ... more

��Cadillac Health Care Plans. �� #0160; Even the phrase suggests gilt-edged insurance for Greedy Geezers at Goldman Sachs . No wonder the Senate wants to slap a tax on insurers and self-insured emplo ... more

Expiring patents are a bitter pill for drug companiesA RECORD number of drug patents will expire over the next few years, which should heighten competition from generic drugs and force down prices. In ... more

Below, an excerpt from an article in the most recent (December 23 ) New England Journal of Medicine titled #0160; ��Medicine ��s Ethical Responsibility for Health Care Reform �� The Top Five List, b ... more

I believe that many pharmaceutical companies, dominated by bottom-line concerns, are shedding many of their professional and scientific activities and transforming themselves primarily into marketing- ... more

A Miami psychiatrist has incurred the wrath of no less than Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who argues that the doctor is dramatically over-prescribing medications for Medicaid patients. Grassley sent ... more

Mr. HIStalk reports some interesting news -- Abbott has acquired Starlims. Here is his account:Abbott Laboratories will acquire Starlims Technologies, an Israel-based lab systems company, for $123 mil ... more

The large pharmaceutical companies are in the midst of what I view as a major transformation of their business models. I have documented some of these changes here. One has been the outsourcing of new ... more

For reasons that still aren't clear, children covered by Medicaid are prescribed antipsychotic drugs more often than those with private insurance, according to new federally-funded research.The dispar ... more

Pharma reps were living it up in the mid-1990s, making sweet salaries and bonuses and enjoying tight relationships with doctors. Now however, in the face of products that have gone south, doctors who ... more

Across the U.S., states are mulling restrictions on relationships between doctors and industry (perhaps because the federal legislature is busy with one or two little health issues of its own?) This w ... more

If an expensive, name-brand cholesterol drug costs four times more than a generic but provides no clear clinical benefit, why do insurers ��both public and private ��continue to pay for it? The answer ... more

In recent times, a vocal bloc of critics have been working to reduce the volume of direct-to-consumer advertisements placed by pharmaceutical companies or even eliminate such ads altogether. The follo ... more

Drugmakers have taken a lot of flack over direct-to-consumer drug advertising, but to date, Congress hasn't imposed any major limitations on the practice. Critics have argued that such ads encourage t ... more

Pharmaceutical companies have been asked to help fund health reform by cutting drug costs $8 billion per year over the next 10 years. But while this sounds good, drugmakers may be taking steps to soft ... more

While it's gotten relatively little attention from pundits, provisions within reform bills passing through Congress would demand that pharmaceutical companies disclose how they're spending on continui ... more

Well, folks, it looks like we're on the verge of getting a parcel of health insurance reforms pushed through Congress. Health insurance reform isn't precisely health system reform, but it does represe ... more

To remain certified, doctors must take continuing medical education courses each year. With about half of the $1 billion per year cost of these courses being picked up by pharmaceutical companies, que ... more

Both Big Pharma and the hospital industry stand to profit greatly from healthcare reform. New customers for drugs and services will undoubtedly emerge from this legislation. So who will be getting the ... more

Looked at it one way, generic drug manufacturers are getting quite a break when it comes to financing health reform. Under the Senate Finance Committee bill approved last week, the hospital industry w ... more

In what was supposed to be a bit of routine business, CVS Caremark recently sent out a series of promotional mailings to doctors on behalf of a handful of major drugmakers, including Eli Lilly, Merck, ... more

Now that the Senate Finance Committee's healthcare reform bill is moving ahead, it's a good time to see where different industry groups stand. Here's what key organizations stand to lose or gain: * Am ... more

While the healthcare reform debate rages in the United States, some in other countries fear the outcome will stifle the discovery of new drugs. Some health economists, particularly within the pharmace ... more

While medical journals and professional societies generally require doctors to disclose possible conflicts of interest--such as payments from medical devicemakers or pharmaceutical companies--some doc ... more

As most readers know, extracting financial concessions from major health industry stakeholders has been a big piece of President Obama's strategy for funding health reform. While industry leaders have ... more

No one would argue that health plans have deployed their full lobbying powers to influence the outcome of the health reform process--after all, every major interest in the health insurance industry is ... more

Right now, the White House expects to fund reform with contributions from several major sectors within the healthcare industry. That includes the pharmaceutical giants, who have agreed to a cut of $80 ... more

a workshop entitled Multisite Integration in a Global Environment at the recent Pathology Visions conference in San Diego. The workshop faculty included representatives from the global medical researc ... more

For years, various legislators have struggled with the issue of doctors' accepting payments from drug and device manufacturers, arguing that such relationships were questionable, at best, and harmful ... more

Companion diagnostics are lab tests designed to screen patients as candidates for treatment with new biotech drugs (see: A Closer Look at Companion Diagnostics Strategies; Consideration of a Broader D ... more

#0160; #0160; #0160; Health Wonk Review spotlights the best healthcare posts of the past two weeks. The most recent edition calls attention to Joe Paduda ��s two-part post on Managed Care Matters ... more

If you take a look at the history of left-wing politics in America, you ��ll find that left-wingers always seem to be spoiling for a fight ��with each other. This summer, many on the left have decided ... more

In a tribute to Edward Kennedy, David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times, wrote a column that I would call a short masterpiece. Below is a excerpt from it that focuses on the nature of our Ame ... more

If reform passes, or even if the sentiments around reform remain in the air, pharmacy-benefit managers may take something of a financial beating in coming months, according to an analysis in The Wall ... more

Lately, medical device companies and pharmaceutical giants have been taking a lot of heat for their relationships with doctors. Critics suggest that it's seldom, if ever, a good idea for doctors to ge ... more

Healthcare ��and healthcare reform ��is complicated, in part because so much of what we think we know about American medicine turns out to be untrue. For instance, one would assume that more expensiv ... more

In a previous note, I discussed the issue of ghost-written medical journal articles (see: Details Emerge About Ghost-Written Medical Articles for Wyeth) and phony medical journals, created-from-scratc ... more

Below, a response to novelist Jane Smiley that I am publishing on the Huffington Post tomorrow. #0160; Earlier this week, Smiley posted on Huffington expressing her dismay that President Obama seems t ... more

The pharmaceutical industry has been settling into its ��good guy �� role in recent days; first committing to $80 billion in cost savings over ten years to help defray the cost of health reform and t ... more

Yesterday, it seemed that the Huffington Post ��s Ryan Grim had a scoop. He reported that Huffington has obtained a memo that ��confirms �� that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly ... more

Imagine that you are Billy Tauzin. You ��re known as a brazen politician, with few scruples. You helped shepherd the Bush administration ��s Medicare bill through Congress ��legislation that included ... more

Antidepressant use has shot up dramatically over the last decade or so, including among children, while visits to psychiatrists have continued to fall, according to a new study.As of 2005, the most re ... more

#0160;On Alternet, Bill Moyers summarizes what happened in D.C. last week: ��Push finally came to shove in Washington . . . .as the battle for health care escalated from scattered sniper fire into a ... more

Some might say a year of debate is long enough, even for Congress. But at the American Medical Association, they're taking their time over a new ethics policy designed to limit pharmaceutical company ... more

Continuing his efforts to keep a spotlight on cozy financial relationships between industry players and physicians, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is asking tough questions about the relationship between ... more

Lately, rules limiting relationships between physicians and pharmaceutical companies have been enacted at a rapid pace. Many doctors have been comfortable with these changes, but some aren't happy. No ... more

With health reform set for one of the biggest remakes in U.S. history, it's little wonder that health players are spending big bucks on lobbying Capitol Hill. But of all the moneyed healthcare interes ... more

While the economy may be recovering just a bit, times continue to be immensely difficult for free health clinics, whose patients loads are continuing to rise while corporate sponsors and charity cut b ... more

Politco.Com ��s Mike Allen broke the story yesterday: ��For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists #0160; . . . off-the-record, non-confrontational access to Obama administrat ... more

This is a guest post by Dave Pollard, an author and activist who blogs over at How to Save the World, and has always been one of my favorites in the blogosphere. I found this piece interesting becaus ... more

This is a guest post by Dave Pollard, who blogs over at How to Save the World, and has always been one of my favorites in the blogosphere. I found this piece interesting because it elucidates many of ... more

One of the fellows at young biotech company Genescient, who has also volunteered for the Methuselah Foundation in the past, has been bugging me to talk about the company. So here I am, talking about G ... more

Drug companies have been allowed to introduce generic versions of traditional pharmaceuticals since 1984 ��saving the U.S. health care system an estimated $734 billion over the last ten years alone. B ... more

If you're a sales rep for a pharmaceutical product, you're barred from discussing any uses of a drug not approved by the FDA. Like most regulations, however, there's a loophole, and drug companies are ... more

Over on the always-excellent Schwitzer Health News Blog, #0160; #0160;the University of Minnesota ��s Gary Schwitzer spotlights a notice that appeared in the Society of Professional Journalist ��s (SP ... more

A trio of companies engaged in the business of selling prescribing information to drugmakers--a practice referred to as "data mining" are asking an appeals court to stop an anti-data-mining law from b ... more

Continuing his campaign to clean up healthcare industry relationships, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has asked 23 medical schools to share details on their conflict-of-interest policies. Grassley's lette ... more

I am now part of a Washing ton Post panel of health care analysts. Each Monday, the Post sends us a question, and asks us to comment. This week, the question focused on ��the pharmaceutical industry ... more

It's known as "pay for delay": the practice under which brand drugmakers pay generics manufacturers to put off the introduction of competing products. Pay-for-delay has come under intense scrutiny of ... more

While the number of medical schools attempting to change their conflict-of-interest policy for the better has more than doubled in the last year, more than half of all medical schools' policies are st ... more

Backed by the state's medical society, Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas (R) has signed a bill that gives the state some of the toughest controls in the country on financial relationships between doctors and i ... more

Right now, sentiment is high on Capitol Hill to expose the money flowing to doctors from pharmaceutical and medical device companies. A look at what's happening in some markets right now, however, poi ... more

Even if you're not a health IT specialist, it's hard to miss Cerner, one of the biggest players in the electronic medical records business. That makes it particularly big news when it decides to begin ... more

As we've reported previously, the comparative effectiveness provision in the stimulus package turned out to be a political hot potato, with some opponents--notably pharma and medical device firms--ess ... more

When professionals talk about the influence of pharma or medical device gifts on doctors, most are discussing consulting fees, vacations disguised as CME classes and the like, not pens or sticky notes ... more

A giant leap toward space-based solar power Reporting from Sacramento -- Pacific Gas Electric Co. for decades has generated power for its customers by splitting atoms, burning natural gas and captur ... more

Now here's something you don't see every day. Pharmaceutical giant Boehringer Ingeheim is working with a hospital and a humanitarian group to create a free clinic for some of Connecticut's uninsured.B ... more

Regulations, laws and policies limiting the way physicians interact with pharmaceutical and medical device companies have been flying thick and fast over the past couple of years. It's no surprise, th ... more

Vermont legislators have passed a bill that would require medical products companies to share information on payments they make to providers and other groups.The bill would expand an existing ban forb ... more

Why? You ��ve seen the headlines: ��Health Care Industry Offers to Rein in Spending ��; ��Stakeholders to Obama: We ��re Ready to Cut Costs ��?What does this mean? I think it means that the industry ... more

I have posted a number of previous notes about how pharmaceutical companies have manipulated the flow of information available to physicians during medical conferences and lectures in order to promote ... more

Here's a radical thought: Pharma's future may expand well beyond medications. A new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests that to prepare for the pharma world of 2020, pharmaceutical companies s ... more

Pharma executives are breathing a sigh of relief this week thanks to news that Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) is stepping down from his role as head of the Senate Finance Committee. He'll move to the Se ... more

Over the last 18 months or so, the political climate has gotten pretty darned unfriendly for doctors who chose to accept pharma money or gifts. In some cases their parent organizations have banned the ... more

Vermont has won an important battle in its war to block the use of prescriber-identifiable data for drug marketing. A law instituting such a block had been challenged by a group of prescription data ... more

It #39;s time for some brief comments about the topic of corporate support for CME conferences. A recent blog note (see: If the pharmaceutical industry won #39;t pay for CME, who will?) provides a gli ... more

> Under order from a judge, the FDA is pulling back restrictions on Plan B, the so-called "morning after pill." The new rules will allow 17-year-olds to get the drug without a prescription. FiercePhar ... more

Now here's an idea that is likely to win a lot of fans. Under pressure from insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies have begun to adjust what they charge for medications based on how well the me ... more

While most healthcare industry leaders have already noticed that consumers are cutting back on prescription drugs to save money, fewer have remarked on another drug-related phenomenon. Apparently, ove ... more

On this site we typically discuss the extent and timing of our energy supply limits, (as well as planetary sink capacities and non-energy input limits). Less common are discussions on our ends, and w ... more

If you want to understand why U.S. health care is so expensive, take a look at the chart below. It illustrates how the price of cancer drugs has levitated in recent years, revealing how, in our largel ... more

With heat increasingly mounting on providers to turn away pharma dollars, major trade groups in the industry had already begun cutting back on their dependence on industry contributions.For example, t ... more

In a recent note, I discussed disease mongering, another name for medicalization of conditions such as fibromyalgia (see: Disease Mongering (i.e., Medicalization) by Pharmaceutical Companies). Accordi ... more

The etymology for the word monger is quite interesting -- it was not originally used in a pejorative sense, as it is today, but referred neutrally to a trader or middleman. Mongering today is used to ... more

Federal investigators are now digging into the financial records of a Massachusetts anesthesiologist and former head of the acute pain unit at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield. Dr. Scott Reuben ... more

What started as an academic dispute regarding disclosure of conflict of interest is now snowballing into the mainstream media, due to the over-reaction by JAMA editors as reported in this Wall Street ... more

Over the week-end, when I heard that President Obama had selected Margaret #0160; Hamburg as FDA commissioner and Joshua Sharfstein as deputy commissioner, I began Googling ��Sharfstein. �� #0160; I ... more

Massachusetts officials have just passed some of the toughest regulations in the country governing financial relationships between providers and drug/medical devicemakers.The new rules, which were rec ... more

While we at FierceHealthcare have covered all kinds of allegations regarding skulduggery in the research business, particularly questionable behavior that advances pharmaceutical company interests.Thi ... more

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) continues with his campaign to address pharma influence in medicine, this time with a letter to Pfizer asking about its financial relationship with doctors at Harvard Medi ... more

Of late, medical institutions and legislatures have been paying a great deal of attention to the gifts physicians receive from pharmaceutical companies, right down to branded pens and notepads. But ar ... more

Medical devicemaker Medtronic has become the latest of a string of companies agreeing to voluntarily disclose their payments to physicians. Starting in March 2011, the company plans to begin reporting ... more

> CMS is projecting that the growth in national healthcare spending will slow in 2009, but will nonetheless continue to grow faster than the economy given the current recession. Article > The head of ... more

KevinMD, the author of a very successful health blog, posted a recent note posing the controversial question of whether the fact that pharmaceutical companies are now generally banned from providing g ... more

Pfizer has announced that it plans to make data on payments to healthcare professionals publicly available starting in early 2010, including not only physicians, but also researchers and research site ... more

I don't know if I buy it, but they're certainly trying to sell it. Drug company trade group PhRMA is making the rounds in Washington, vowing that it will be "part of the solution" when it comes to hea ... more

Harvard Medical School has set plans to strengthen conflict-of-interest rules for its doctors and researchers, amid criticism over its existing rules and a U.S. Senate investigation of several of its ... more

Just how much impact do those endless TV drug advertisements have on consumers? The truth is, nobody's sure just how much of an impression they make--but the FDA would like to find out.The agency has ... more

With expansion going on at almost all U.S. medical schools--adding about 5,000 new physicians to the profession by 2020--it's a great time for medical educators to think out of the box, according to a ... more

The healthcare industry may be in an uproar over pharma and medical devicemaker funding for physician activities, but physicians don't seem to be so conflicted, if a recent study is to be believed. Th ... more

With the giant union between Pfizer and Wyeth en route to being consummated, analysts are now speculating about other major mergers are to follow. Several think this could be the Year of Consolidation ... more

A new federal bill requiring more extensive disclosure of payments to physicians by pharmas and medical device companies is now circulating on Capitol Hill. The bill, a new version of the Physician Pa ... more

Park Nicollet Health Services has announced that it will become the first healthcare system in Minnesota to require its physicians to publicly disclose their relationships with pharmaceutical and medi ... more

I have posted a number of previous notes about the growth of contract research organizations (CROs) fueled, in part, by the willingness of Big Pharma to outsource various components of drug discovery ... more

The FDA has finalized a rule that will make it easier for pharmaceutical reps to use medical journal articles to promote unapproved uses for medications. Ordinarily, pharmas aren't allowed to advertis ... more

These days everyone wants to know exactly what's passing between pharmaceutical companies and doctors: Down to the cheapest pen, they want to know how doctors might be influenced by pharma. So, to fig ... more

A group of lawmakers in Vermont wants to add the state to the ranks of states forcing physician transparency. Their idea is to launch an online database detailing relationships between state physician ... more

This was a watershed year for the practice of cozying up to doctors with everything from pens to exotic trips and fat consulting contracts. During 2008, not only did many academic institutions ban suc ... more

Over the next few years, drug makers are likely to face many new challenges, including government approved importation of cheaper drugs, #0160; Medicare negotiating for lower prices, stricter regulati ... more

We're always concerned when we hear news that the FDA may not have done trials extensive enough to really determine whether a drug is safe or not. But as if that weren't enough, there's something else ... more

The Wall Street Journal has some of the best health care reporting of any major newspaper, yet its editorial page is often filled with shrill, misleading nonsense ��particularly when it comes to healt ... more

Once again on the forefront, the Massachusetts Public Health Council has issued a draft of some of nation's most aggressive regulation on the subject of gifts to physicians. The regulation would not j ... more

Prescription scares have caused a number of sources, including the FDA, to release a lot more prescription safety information--but could it be too much information? Several recent studies have raised ... more

A consumer group has raised a protest over a group of ads for medical devices running on video site YouTube, arguing that the ads may be illegal. The group, Prescription Project, would like to see reg ... more

Joining a growing national movement, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and its health system have announced that it will begin disclosing information on all of its doctors and scientis ... more

Maggie Mahar and Niko Karvounis Last week the New York Times published a story about one the biggest medical trials ever organized by the federal government, #0160; a study that showed that the newest ... more

Yesterday Reuters reported that, in comments at a Financial Times conference in London, a top executive at Roche Pharmaceuticals condemned direct-to-consumer advertising as a disaster. ��Direct-to-co ... more

In general, I believe that medical students should spend their time hitting the books rather than engaging in various forms of social protest. However, I have just discovered a situation where it seem ... more

Usually when we tell you about a conflict of interest case in which a doctor received funds from a pharmaceutical company, the pharmaceutical company offered the doctor the funds. In this case, though ... more

> Provena Health just named Guy Wiebking its new president and CEO. Wiebking replaces Steven Hunter, who was the chairman of Provena's board of directors for five years. Hunter also served as vice pre ... more

For those who study industry organisation and its contemporary economic geography, biotechnology is intrinsically challenging. Moreover, biotechnology clusters are interesting and important intellectu ... more

The basic thesis of this paper is that the R D sector of the new medicines' business is experiencing evolutionary stress. Due to the failure of the regulatory framework and applied sciences to keep pa ... more

Some facts to chew on: The prescription drug industry is projected to reach $842 billion in global sales in 2010. Over the last ten years, 80 percent of the drugs that have entered the U.S. market are ... more

On November 3rd the Supreme Court will hear the case of Wyeth v. Levine, which has been called the ��business case of the century �� ��and with good reason. In essence, Monday ��s ruling will decide ... more

In a move similar to one made last year by the University of Pittsburgh, providers of pharmaceutical and medical devices were dealt a blow last week when the Wisconsin Medical Society's board voted in ... more

While they still haven't passed a law forcing drug companies and medical device firms to disclose payments to doctors--as some influential legislators still hope to do--that doesn't mean lawmakers are ... more

Everyone knowns that medical school can be a bruising ordeal, one that depletes students of time, energy, money and morale--and that in some cases, the stress is just too much to handle. Increasingly, ... more

A high-profile Emory University psychiatrist has been accused of failing to report one-third of the $2.8 million in consulting fees he received from companies whose drugs he was evaluating, according ... more

A recent article in the New York Times is only the latest revelation in a chorus of articles about payments from pharmaceutical companies to medical school professors for various consulting services ( ... more

Medical education is behind the times, with too little focus on quality measures and too little training on information technology adoption, according to representatives from the academic medical comm ... more

Though the funding itself is no secret, media organizations seldom note when such medication studies are paid for by pharmaceutical companies, according to a new study published in the Journal of the ... more

Drugmaker Cephalon has agreed to pay $444 million to bring state and federal investigations of its sales and marketing practices to a close. As part of its settlement, Cephalon has agreed to plead gui ... more

In a historic move, but one that is likely to become more common as drugmakers work to hold off threatening legislation, pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly and Co. has said that next year it will begin dis ... more

Recently, critics have made quite an uproar over the prevalence of direct-to-consumer advertising created by pharmaceutical companies, suggesting that such ads could be deceptive in their claims, coul ... more

I have posted a number of previous notes about contract research organizations (CROs) which are flourishing as Big Pharma continues to outsource a major share of its research and clinical trial initia ... more

Expect to see a lot more stories like this in one in coming months, folks, as it's become extremely popular to challenge medical devicemaker and pharmaceutical financing of, well, anything that doesn' ... more

Perhaps going with the prevailing winds--which definitely favor disclosing gifts to healthcare players before the state makes you do it--medical devicemaker Medtronic has decided to voluntarily disclo ... more

Lately, universities have been taking a hard line when it comes to gifts from drug companies, with some setting strict limits that ban even pens and Post-It notes with pharma logos on them. Now, unive ... more

The editor in chief of Psychiatric Times, a leading psychiatric journal, has stepped forward to say the journal will disclose conflicts of interest that may exist within its editorial board to "help e ... more

Sometimes, when a healthcare institution rolls out a conflict of interest policy, it creates a hue and cry from various parties who feel that patients or staff members will be unfairly burdened in som ... more

Today, Stanford University is expected to announce that it will set strict limits on pharmaceutical industry financing of continuing education for doctors at its medical school. This marks a major cha ... more

Bowing to emerging trends favoring such disclosures, drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline has announced plans to publicly report the grants it provides to U.S. healthcare organizations. The report, which will be ... more

What this country needs is more lobbyists, representing more interests groups. This is what Nicholas Lemann, Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, all but declares in a contrarian piece publishe ... more

Did you know that three-quarters of the 40 million sightless people in the world don ��t have to be blind? According to ORBIS International, a global nonprofit organization, most of the world ��s blin ... more

I have posted a number of notes about contract research organizations (CROs) in the past, primarily relating to Covance and Charles River. My interest in them has been sparked by the fact that lab tes ... more

Concerned about the potential for undue drug industry influence, the American Psychiatric Association has appointed a work group to identify what drug industry money it's taken in, how the income is u ... more

Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick (D) has signed legislation that, in addition to promoting electronic medical records and boosting primary care training, imposes one of the country's toughest limi ... more

It ��s no secret that the pharmaceutical industry trades in junk science. We ��ve talked about how prescription drug companies distort research many times here on Health Beat, focusing on how companie ... more

Amid a storm of protest, New York City's Health and Hospitals Corp. has signed a 10-year, $100 million deal with a Caribbean medical school to provide clinical training for students at the city's 11 p ... more

> A pair of FDA critics, Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), plan to overhaul the FDA and give the organization additional power, as well as to draw a deeper line in the sand betw ... more

> A new report issued by the House suggests taxpayers are paying up to 30 percent more for prescription drugs under Medicare Part D than under Medicaid. FiercePharma> When it gets blazing hot outside ... more

I am pleased to announce that Dr.Jason Hwang has agreed to deliver a lecture at the next Lab InfoTech Summit that will take place in Las Vegas on March 16-18, 2009. He is a co-author with Clayton Chri ... more

Direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising is coming under more heavy fire from Congress, despite efforts by drugmakers to hold off regulation of one of their favorite marketing channels. This week ... more

> Drugmaker Wyeth is facing thousands of lawsuits against it claiming that Prempro and Premarin made them ill. FiercePharma> PhRMA president and former Republican Congressman Billy Tauzin is beating t ... more

Massachusetts legislators have stripped several controversial provisions out of pending legislation that would have imposed strict new rules on pharmaceutical company relationships with doctors. The b ... more

> Pharmaceutical companies have been cutting sales forces recently. The most recent is Boehringer Ingelheim, which will halve the ranks of its neurology sales force. FiercePharma> The ongoing investig ... more

Under attack from Congress, particularly Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), the psychiatric field's leading professional organization is being forced to explain its tight financial relationships with the p ... more

Taking control of what may have otherwise been forced upon it, the pharmaceutical industry has agreed to a voluntary code of conduct that bans gifts to physicians. The rules, the Code on Interactions ... more

> It appears that efforts by Big Pharma to give away drugs to the poor are having some impact. Growing numbers of pharmas are creating Patient Assistance Programs and making it easier to access such p ... more

I have posted a number of previous notes about companion diagnostics (see, as one example, the following: Companion Diagnostics Gaining Ground, But Slowly). Now comes an interesting article that descr ... more

> Under pressure to capitalize on their discoveries, pharmaceutical companies are finding huge lists of new uses for their drugs. One good example is Eli Lilly's Cymbalta, which is approved for a half ... more

> A new study appearing in JAMA suggesting that RFID tags may disrupt the functioning of critical equipment has rocked the hospital world. FierceHealthIT> Consumer perceptions of pharmaceutical compan ... more

> It looks like Big Pharma has spent another record-breaking chunk of change on political lobbying--a full $168 million during last year alone. Article> WellPoint seems to believe that if doctors adop ... more

Under fire over direct-to-consumer ads, which some Congressional legislators contend are misleading to consumers, pharmaceutical companies have agreed to voluntarily wait six months after drugs are ap ... more

> The American Medical Association has officially decided that it won't ban pharma industry-funded continuing medical education. FiercePharma> Google and Microsoft have each signed up new health plan ... more

A Harvard child psychiatrist with a global reputation whose work has helped to promote the use of antipsychotic meds in children apparently didn't report most of the $1.6 million in drug maker Read mo ... more

Big pharma gave up on soil bacteria as a source of antibiotics too soon, according to research in Microbiology. Scientists have been mining microbial genomes for new natural products that may have app ... more

Although I am not generally enthusiastic about the need for more rules and regulations, I believe that the relationship between some academic physicians and some pharmaceutical companies has gotten co ... more

> Wondering who's getting pharmaceutical dollars in this election cycle? Guess what--it's the Democrats. ... more

> More than a year after the deal was proposed, the Pennsylvania Insurance Department has (finally) scheduled hearings to review public comments on the proposed merger of Independence Blue Cross Read ... more

This post was written by Maggie Mahar and Niko Karvounis In 1980 Ronald Reagan claimed the presidency and America headed in a new, sharply more conservative direction. It is no accident that this a ... more

I have posted previous notes about the challenges facing Big Pharma in terms of the lack of potential blockbuster drugs in the development pipeline (see: Number of Global Drug Projects by Phase). Davi ... more

This post was written by Maggie Mahar and Niko Karvounis Life expectancy is a pretty simple concept: it ��s an estimation of how long the average person lives. Anyone can understand that. So how is t ... more

> Security pros are lambasting WellPoint, which may have inadvertently allowed Web users to access data on 130,000 of its beneficiaries. FierceHealthIT> A new study has found that when Oregon dropped ... more

> Revenue growth has slowed for Pennsylvania hospitals, but still continues, and they continue to enjoy relatively healthy margins. FierceHealthFinance > The Journal of the American Medical Associati ... more

> Industry researchers are predicting that it will take a huge increase in the volume of professionals available (more than 40,000) to meet the near-term demand for skilled health IT pros. FierceHea ... more