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For patients and pharmacists in financially stricken Greece, even finding aspirin has turned into a headache. Mina Mavrou, who runs a pharmacy in a middle-class Athens suburb, spends hours each day pleading with drugmakers, wholesalers and colleagues to hunt down medicines for clients. Life-saving drugs such as Sanofi (SAN)’s blood-thinner Clexane and GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK)’s asthma inhaler Flixotide often appear as lines of crimson data on pharmacists’ computer screens, meaning the products aren’t in stock or that pharmacists can’t order as many units as they need. “When we see red, we want to cry,” Mavrou said. “The situation is worsening day by day.” The 12,000 pharmacies that dot almost every street corner in Greek cities are the damaged capillaries of a complex system for getting treatment to patients. The Panhellenic Association of Pharmacists reports shortages of almost half the country’s 500 most-used medicines. Even when drugs are available, pharmacists often must foot the bill up front, or patients simply do without. The financial crisis is brewing a “Greek tragedy” of slowing access to medical care and worsening outcomes for patients, Martin McKee, a professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, wrote in an October article in The Lancet.
Wednesday, 11 January 2012 AstraZeneca has entered into a three-year collaboration agreement with IMS Health, the leading provider of information, services and technology for the healthcare sector, to advance the use of real-world evidence based on observational and retrospective studies throughout Europe to inform the delivery of effective and cost-efficient healthcare.
The partnership with IMS Health will give AstraZeneca access to pre-existing anonymised electronic health records, which include clinical outcome, economic and treatment pattern data. In addition, the companies will jointly develop a customised research and data analysis platform.
Drug companies have been forced to pay massive premiums on acquisitions as the selection of target companies with viable prospects narrows and the need to fill out their portfolio of medicines intensifies, industry executives and bankers said at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference this week in San Francisco. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co's deal to buy Inhibitex at a 163 percent premium may be the most extreme example to date, but they are not likely to be alone as other global pharmaceutical makers compete for a small number of companies.
"There's always been a steady wave of health care M&A. The only difference now is there is a panicky quality to deals as companies appear to be playing musical chairs and they are grabbing at things to avoid being left alone when the music stops," said an investment banker, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Siemens Healthcare and Social Media Today LLC have announced a collaborative agreement whereby Siemens will provide exclusive sponsorship of the Healthworks Collective, an editorially independent, moderated community for thought leaders in international healthcare.
As part of this ongoing sponsorship, Siemens experts said they will contribute content and resources to inform the group’s discussions on aspects of medical technology, healthcare informatics and healthcare reform. It also provides a forum for healthcare professionals to debate the latest issues and advances.
According to a recent report from Frost & Sullivan, in 2015 the market for mobile health applications will be about $100 million bigger than the market for remote patient monitoring. Frost estimates that mobile health apps will reach $392 million in 2015, while remote patient monitoring will hit $294.9 million. Frost estimates that mobile health apps earned revenues in 2010 of $230 million, a higher than expected total. Remote patient monitoring generated $126.8 million in revenues.
Despite this positive industry growth, the firm’s report predicts significant challenges ahead for those working on health apps, including regulatory issues, privacy and security concerns, and consumer awareness.
By Sabin Vaccine Institute Published: Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2012
WASHINGTON, Jan. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Launched today, the END7 campaign is dedicated to eliminating seven major neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) as a public health threat to poor communities by the end of 2020. NTDs infect one in six people worldwide, including 500 million children, and carry a higher health burden than malaria and tuberculosis. The effects of these diseases are devastating. NTDs cause blindness, massive swelling in appendages and limbs, severe malnutrition and anemia. They are a leading cause of pregnancy complications among women and are a key source of poverty by reducing school attendance among children and worker productivity for adults.
Treatment for NTDs is one of the most cost-effective health programs available today. Pills to treat the seven leading NTDs are donated by pharmaceutical companies and many programs use existing infrastructure, such as schools and community centers, to administer the treatments. The END7 campaign raises the public awareness and funding required to cover the costs of distributing medicine and setting up treatment programs in impoverished communities. The annual cost works out to approximately 50 cents to treat and protect one person for a whole year against all seven diseases.
Rebecca Aris interviews Deepak Murpani, VP Product Development Genepharm
Ahead of his speaking engagement at the Generics & Biosimilars summit 2012, Deepak Murpani shares his insights into the current state of the generics industry and how he thinks it will evolve in the future. He also offers his insights on the impact that the downturn of the Greek economy has had on generics.
Dr. Murpani spent more than 17 years in R&D driven pharmaceutical companies like Panacea biotech (1996-1997), Ranbaxy (1997-2006) and Genepharm. Presently employed as VP (Product development), with Genepharm, Greece since 2006. He is a Pharmacist by qualification with most of the scientific experience in industrial and business driven generic and super-generic R&D.
GlaxoSmithKline has announced the launch of MyAsthma, the UK's first, free personalised health application (app) designed to help people over the age of 12 take greater control of their asthma. The app features the Asthma Control Test™ (ACT), a simple 30-second test developed by leading asthma experts, which gives asthma patients a useful measure of their asthma control in an easy-to-understand score. Although many patients are receiving treatment for their asthma, a recent survey in the UK shows that almost 50% do not have their asthma under control. MyAsthma applies new technology to traditional asthma management to provide a daily personalised plan helping patients to manage their asthma more effectively.
"MyAsthma is exciting for people with asthma as it uses new technology to help them better understand and control this chronic disease. MyAsthma can also be used by carers of people with asthma, especially parents and is a great way to teach older children the importance of taking control of their asthma. This creates a habit that they can carry into adulthood, a significant and positive step for the future of asthma care in the UK" said Dr Mike Thomas, Asthma UK Senior Research Fellow with the University of Aberdeen and Chief Medical Adviser, Asthma UK. "Empowering patients to take more control of long-term conditions not only leads to improved health outcomes but also cost savings."
Asthma is a chronic condition of the airways with symptoms including breathing difficulties and sudden episodes of breathlessness. Asthma affects approximately 5.4 million people in the UK with 4.3m adults and 1.1m children, currently receiving treatment for mild, moderate or severe asthma.(3) When not well controlled, asthma symptoms can result in hospitalisation, even fatality. Asthma places a significant economic burden on both individuals and society. The NHS spends around £1 billion a year treating and caring for people with asthma and between 2008 and 2009, up to 1.1 million working days were lost due to breathing or lung problems.
Designed with the support of a panel of asthma experts and Professor Rob Horne, a behavioural psychologist at the University of London, MyAsthma displays localised information on asthma triggers such as pollen count, pollution and weather. It is enabled to help patients track their symptoms and ACT score evolution over time and contains a library with useful information about asthma. An algorithm generates tailored messages, based on a person's ACT score and individual profiles, to help people address the personal barriers they face and to help them improve their management of the condition. MyAsthma is convenient and easy to use allowing patients to track their asthma control at the quick touch of a smartphone screen, which can help to create a more informed dialogue during consultations with their healthcare professional. (See the video).
Quintiles is promoting the benefits of its MediGuard healthcare information management system to former users of the now defunct Google Health. Quintiles' digital health unit was launched earlier this week with the aim of better supporting its MediGuard and ClinicalResearch online patient communities.
The new service allows users to securely store information about their own medicine use in order to identify any possible dangerous drug interactions and safety alerts, as well as sharing feedback with fellow patients on side effects and similar issues.
An open invitation to join MediGuard has been extended to patients who used Google Health prior to its January 1st 2012 discontinuation, with Google stating that the service had failed to achieve its targets in terms of scale.
David Coman, senior vice-president at Quintiles and head of the digital patient unit, said MediGuard, with its 2.5 million members, is successfully executing Google's intended model, offering free and easy-to-use information on patient safety issues.
Mr Coman said: "Google Health was a brilliant concept, but in order for online patient services to work, there must be a clear benefit to patients who enroll in them."
Bristol-Myers Squibb has been ranked as the leading large drug company of 2011 in a new report from Forbes magazine.
The publication has presented the accolade based on the success of the firm's operations in the last 12 months, during which its share price rose by 32 per cent to $35 (20.60 pounds).
Bristol-Myers Squibb's chief executive officer was credited with helping to build on the successful strategy deployed by previous leader James Cornelius, which has seen the company increase its focus on core pharmaceutical operations.
Over the last year, the firm has achieved clinical and regulatory milestones for promising therapies such as Yervoy and Eliquis, while making progress in its efforts to break into the Indian market.
Forbes expects Bristol-Myers Squibb to reap the benefits of these achievements in the coming years, with Yervoy in particular predicted by analysts to be a multibillion-dollar blockbuster success.
This also comes after the company agreed two new collaborations with Gladstone Institutes and Simcere last month, which will focus respectively on Alzheimer's disease and cardiovascular treatments.
Roche Group member Genentech has entered into a new drug discovery collaboration with fellow healthcare company Vernalis.
The arrangement will see the organisations working towards an undisclosed research target using Vernalis' fragment and structure-based drug discovery platform, with financial details of the deal remaining confidential.
James Sabry, vice-president of Genentech Partnering, said: "Genentech constantly seeks collaborations like this one to develop therapies that offer the potential of advancing the standard of care and making a meaningful difference in the lives of patients."
Meanwhile, Vernalis' chief executive officer Ian Garland said Genentech's decision validates the market-leading credentials of its drug discovery platform, while reinforcing its strategy of using collaborations to support its research efforts.
Last month, Roche and Genentech published new clinical trial data from a phase III study called Cleopatra, which assessed the safety and efficacy of the drug pertuzumab against metastatic breast cancer.
The study showed that the treatment delivered a 6.1-month improvement in progression-free survival.
AstraZeneca and Targacept will be moving ahead with the development of the investigational compound AZD1446 as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease.
Targacept has welcomed the decision of its partner to advance its evaluation of AZD1446 as an adjunct treatment to donepezil in Alzheimer's patients, demonstrating the potential promise of therapies targeting the alpha4beta2 NNR mechanism.
AZD1446 is a selective modulator of the alpha4beta2 neuronal nicotinic receptor that was jointly developed by the two companies, with a collaborative research and license agreement for the drug having been signed in 2005.
Under the terms of this deal, AstraZeneca takes responsibility for conducting and funding the development and potential commercialisation of the innovative therapy.
Dr J Donald deBethizy, president and chief executive officer of Targacept, said the new plans "complement Targacept's ongoing phase IIb study of AZD3480 as a monotherapy as we and AstraZeneca strive to provide an effective treatment for this major unmet medical need".
Last month, it was announced that AstraZeneca will be providing the UK academic sector with access to its clinical compound library as part of a groundbreaking new alliance with the Medical Research Council.
A lack of funding in the biotech industry, brought about by the financial crisis, is proving a boon for cash-rich drug firms. Since the outbreak of the crisis in 2008, big drug companies such as Roche Holding AG have been able to strike deals early and for less money with small biotech developers, which are struggling to fund themselves because traditional investors such as private equity, hedge funds and venture capitalists are shunning the sector. The trend has helped the big drug firms outperform the Stocks Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology index.
"We are doing around 50 to 60 partnership deals a year now, compared to around 30 deals per year before the crisis [of 2008]," said Dan Zabrowski, head of Roche's drug partnership unit. "Today, we start deals earlier with less upfront payments and share the risk with our partners."
Investment prospects for Europe’s big drug makers look set to improve dramatically from mid-2012, despite the gloomy backdrop facing the sector as the year begins. In 2012, the $50 billion-plus “global wave” of lost revenues from patent expirations on major blockbuster medicines finally hits the entire pharmaceuticals sector. Tightened government health-care budgets and downward pressure on drug prices will also keep hurting.
The sector’s ratings have suffered as a result. Patent losses for the large cap drug makers in Europe will peak this year at an estimated $12 billion, representing around 4% of their overall sales, according to analysts at Credit Suisse. But drug companies haven’t been idle. Their managements have used the run-up to the so-called “patent cliff” to strengthen balance sheets, diversify their businesses and expand into emerging markets. The more fortunate ones have grown pipelines and are launching products, as the WSJ reported last summer.
Bristol-Myers Squibb has hit the acquisition trail and unveiled plans to buy HCV specialist Inhibitex. The US major is shelling out $26.00 per share and the second-step merger is worth around $2.50 billion. The board of directors at Inhibitex has backed the deal, which represents a 163% premium to its closing price on January 6, and other shareholders holding 17% of its common stock have entered into agreements to support the transaction.
Inhibitex' primary focus is on the development of nucleotide/nucleoside analogues for the treatment of HCV. Its lead compound is INX-189, an oral nucleotide polymerase (NS5B) inhibitor which is in Phase II development that has exhibited potent antiviral activity, "a high barrier to resistance and pan-genotypic coverage".
It has two other drugs in Phase II: FV-100, a nucleoside inhibitor in development for the reduction of shingles-associated pain, and Aurexis, a humanised monoclonal antibody in development for the treatment of serious Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infections. Inhibitix also has other HCV nucleotide polymerase inhibitors in preclinical development and has licensed its proprietary protein platform to Pfizer for the development of a staphylococcal vaccine, which is in a Phase I/II trial.
Novartis has presented a leading UK cancer research expert with a Promising Renal Investigators Meeting (PRIMe) Award for 2011.
Dr Chiara Margiotta, who is based at the School of Cancer Science of the University of Birmingham and the Cancer Centre of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, was presented with the UK accolade following assessment by an international panel of experts.
The researcher has received a 10,000 euro (8,270 pounds) grant to support the completion of an innovative study that analyses blood and tissue samples from patients receiving tyrosine kinase inhibitors, in order to assess their safety and efficacy.
The health care industry continues to face myriad challenges to improving care delivery systems and creating economic efficiency. Technology such as health care informatics plays a role in both complicating and helping to simplify those processes, which will need to be tackled in 2012. According to an industry report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Cost, Privacy and Social Media Health Care’s are the top 2012 issues.
According to the PwC’s Health Research Institute Survey, which polled 1,000 U.S.-based adults, 42% of people polled would rather have lower health-care costs than a rebound in the economy. The survey revealed consumers will still care about the deficit and an improving economy during the presidential election season, but health-care concerns will dominate.
What’s more PwC, which is an audit and assurance, consulting and tax services provider, found that during 2011 almost half of the people surveyed didn’t seek health care or choose not to get a prescription drug at least once this year because of the cost. Even more alarming: 43% of respondents that have health insurance deferred care one or more times in 2011 while one in five deferred care three times or more. With health care costs continuing to rise and consumer backlash increasing, 2012 could mark the beginning of a substantial shift in how people want to access health care.
In the drug business, exclusivity is everything. Once a branded drug gets generic competition, pricing power fades and sales slowly drain away, leaving drugmakers dependent on the next new thing. It's all very reasonable in theory, but when the drugs losing patent protection are the biggest in the business--and they're all falling off patent around the same time--even the most rational companies can get a bit panicky.
Here, so many drugs are falling off patent that the path forward has twisted, and the entire industry is looking to find its way. Some companies, such as Pfizer and Merck, have merged with major rivals. Others have snapped up acquisitions in ancillary businesses, such as generics and over-the-counter medicines, and expanded into countries they previously ignored. Still others have forged ahead, betting that they'd manage to develop enough new products to make up the difference.
Merck & Co chief Executive Kenneth Frazier says that the US giant is looking at acquisitions of products after coming through a tough 2011. Speaking at the Goldman Sachs' Healthcare CEO's Unscripted: A View from the Top event in New York, Mr Frazier began by saying that last year began badly after its much-touted blood clotter vorapaxar has been pulled from one major study and discontinued from stroke patients in another. He added that "you could say we underperformed" in 2011 but "the question is how do you build a sustainable enterprise that can take those bumps and power through them".
He noted that deals were signed with China's Simcere and India's Sun Pharma "that will position us well going into those markets" and "we continued to deliver on the synergies. We have about $2.8 billion of our $3.5 billion net synergies target in the bag and then we announced another $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion over and above that".
FiercePharma | January 4 | by Ryan McBride and Mark Hollmer
The general upheaval in the pharma business kept employees on edge and HR departments busy drafting layoff notices last year. Drugmakers slashed thousands of jobs in 2011 to withstand the monumental challenges and dangers they face, and our annual layoff report provides key figures, dates and themes related to the industry's top 10 layoffs.
