Υπεγράφη συμφωνία Αρχών μεταξύ του Πανελληνίου Φαρμακευτικού Συλλόγου και Του Συνδέσμου Εταιρειών Φαρμάκων Ευρείας Χρήσης

Ο ΠΦΣ και ο ΕΦΕΧ αναγνωρίζουν την ανάγκη της κοινωνίας για πρόσβαση σε ένα πολύ υψηλό επίπεδο Πρωτοβάθμιας Φροντίδας Υγείας.
Οι πολίτες, όπως προσδιορίζεται και από τον Παγκόσμιο Οργανισμό Υγείας (ΠΟΥ), δικαιωματικά συμμετέχουν σε θεραπευτικές επιλογές που αφορούν  ήπιας μορφής παθήσεις, των οποίων τα συμπτώματα αναγνωρίζονται εύκολα από τον ασθενή, καθώς και σε προληπτικές αγωγές που  θωρακίζουν την υγεία τους.
Τα Μη Συνταγογραφούμενα Φάρμακα Ευρείας Χρήσης (ΜHΣΥΦΑ-OTC) με υψηλά κριτήρια παραγωγής, σήμανσης και διάθεσης και με τη σύσταση-πληροφόρηση και οδηγία των Φαρμακοποιών ή και των Ιατρών αποτελούν ιδιαίτερα χρήσιμη συνιστώσα της Πρωτοβάθμιας Φροντίδας Υγείας.
Δημογραφικές αλλαγές που επηρεάζουν το χώρο της Υγείας αλλά και εθνικές δημοσιονομικές ανάγκες, αυξάνουν την πίεση επί των συστημάτων υγείας για αποτελεσματική και αποδοτική αξιοποίηση των πόρων στη παροχή υπηρεσιών υγείας προς τους πολίτες.

FDA says final mobile app guidance just weeks away

Nearly two years after first setting out its planned approach to the regulation of medical smartphone apps, the FDA said last week final guidance will be ready “in [the] coming weeks”. The US regulator wants oversight of mobile apps that do the job of a medical device, either by transforming a mobile device into a medical device it already regulates, or by acting an accessory to a FDA-regulated medical device.

 

Writing on the FDA Voice blog the director of the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, Office of Device Evaluation, Christy Foreman offered several examples of mobile technology the FDA will seek to regulate.

Top Pharma Companies by 2012 Revenues

In the annals of Big Pharma, 2012 was expected to be the year of all patent-cliff years. With more than a dozen patent expirations, it was the year most dreaded by much of Big Pharma. Yes, the biggest blockbuster lost patent protection in 2011--Pfizer's ($PFE) Lipitor--but in 2012, a whole list of big sellers would drop. Even the Lipitor damage would hit then, because its patent expired only one month before 2011 ended.

So, pharma's sales wouldn't just drop in 2012. They'd plummet like a base-jumping daredevil with a faulty parachute. And the year didn't disappoint. For sheer terror, nothing matched the patent-cliff headlines as the year unfolded. A breathtaking 90% free-fall in Singulair sales for Merck ($MRK)--within four weeks of patent expiration. A Plavix bloodbath for Bristol-Myers Squibb ($BMY), with sales slashed by 96%. A depressing 83% slide in Seroquel IR sales for AstraZeneca ($AZN). And the list goes on.

Eli Lily: Tele-detailing case study

The March 2011 issue of Pharma Marketing News reported on a tele-detailing case study presented by an Eli Lily Sales Innovation Manager at a conference in Italy. Some of the impressive, and somewhat surprising, takeaways were:

How fresh is Big Pharma's Freshness Index?

 Πηγή: Forbs

A convenient way to gauge pharmaceutical innovation is to look at the percentage of a company’s sales that comes from products approved in the last 5 years. This is sometimes called the “Freshness Index”. In the last decade, pharmaceutical companies have been more open about the sales of their leading products, which they now routinely disclose in their financial reports. In 2012, for example, the top 13 big pharma reported the sales of 314 products, representing 79% ($309 bn) of their pharmaceutical sales ($391 bn). Products that were not reported were those too small to matter to investors. These sales figures, combined with knowledge of when products were approved, make it possible to calculate the percentage of sales coming from drugs of various “vintages”. The results are shown in Exhibit 1.

As can be seen, only 10% of sales from reported products ($32 bn) came from drugs approved since 2007, and only 48% ($150 bn) from drugs approved during the last 12 years, which approximates the effective patent life of medicines. Paradoxically, the majority of sales from pharma’s biggest products ($159 bn) comes from drugs approved before 2001, that are either generic, or about to become so. This is quite unexpected, as products falling off the patent-cliff are supposed to be quickly headed for oblivion. Perhaps this longevity is understandable for biologics since there are few biosimilars. Indeed, 31 of the reported products approved before 2001 are biologics, with aggregate sales of $59 bn. That leaves $100 bn for small molecules older than 12 years. The future of big pharma, at least in the short-term, hinges in great part on its skills at selling generics.

The appendix below shows the 116 small molecules approved before 2001. It makes interesting reading in defensive marketing. Some of the bigger names have either recently become generic, or will soon do so, but many drugs survive thanks to brand recognition, patented formulations, and other life-cycle management tools.

Exhibit 2 shows each company’s percentage of reported sales coming from drugs approved since 2007. Novartis leads the pack with a “Freshness Index” of 19%. This supports the view that, in pharmaceuticals, the way to innovate is to focus on breakthroughs, not blockbusters. This is not a new idea. George Merck stated it famously in the 1950s, and for decades, it defined the industry and underpinned its success. Companies that strayed from it have paid a stiff price. Exhibit 2 also shows that 6 out of the top 13 pharma draw less than 5% of their reported sales from products 5 years or younger.

Big Pharma funds Interpol fight against counterfeiters

More than two dozen of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies have agreed to provide funding and other support to Interpol's battle against counterfeit prescription drugs, the international police agency said Tuesday.

Interpol's newly created Pharmaceutical Crime Program aims to help health agencies, police and customs bureaus in countries around the globe stem the supply of bogus brand-name and generic medicines, as well as identify and dismantle the organized crime rings distributing them. Those rings, which operate across borders, are raking in billions of dollars every year, costing legitimate drugmakers a small fortune in lost sales. Meanwhile patients who unknowingly take counterfeit drugs often are poisoned or get sicker because they're not receiving what the doctor prescribed. Experts estimate hundreds of thousands of people around the world die because of counterfeit medicines each year.

The pharmaceutical companies have pledged a total of (EURO)4.5 million, or nearly $5.9 million, over three years to help Interpol with efforts including training local law enforcement officials on investigative procedures, evidence handling and how to better work with partners outside their countries.

Interpol also will help those authorities build up their infrastructure and target enforcement actions against crime rings that make and sell fake drugs, and also divert medication illegally to countries where it's not approved. "We will develop a program according to what is best for the international community and what will save lives," Aline Plancon, head of Interpol's counterfeiting and pharmaceutical crime program, told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview.

 

"It's been difficult for us as Interpol to sustain our activities" against counterfeiting over the years, she said, because the agency's limited resources also are needed for areas the international community sees as more serious crimes. Those include human trafficking, narcotics dealing, terrorism and money laundering.

Besides the financial support, the pharmaceutical companies, most of which spend millions on their own investigations to fight counterfeiting of their medicines, will step up sharing with Interpol the intelligence they uncover. Plancon said her agency, based in Lyon, France, plans to better coordinate its work and collaborate with its member countries. Interpol also will run pilot projects, experimenting with new strategies to find ways to be more effective.

 

The industry support "forms a bridge between the public and private sectors and will assist Interpol and each of its 190 member countries to more effectively tackle the problem of medical product counterfeiting," Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said in a statement.

The World Health Organization estimates sales of medicines that are counterfeit, contaminated or otherwise illegal total $430 billion a year.

In developing countries, up to 50 percent of the drug supply may be fake. That's many times more than in developed countries, where most potentially dangerous fake drugs are sold through rogue Internet pharmacies, but counterfeit drugs increasingly are getting into the supply of pharmacies and hospitals.

In the U.S., for example, three times in the last year counterfeit versions of the Roche Group cancer drug Avastin have infiltrated the wholesale supply and been sold to cancer clinics and hospitals. An unknown amount of those fakes was administered to patients. And in Pakistan last year, 109 heart patients died after taking counterfeit medicine.

The 29 companies supporting the effort include Amgen Inc., AstraZeneca PLC, Eisai Co., GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly and Co., Merck & Co., Novartis,AG, Pfizer Inc., Roche Group and Sanofi SA.

John Lechleiter, chairman of the trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and CEO of Lilly, said Monday that the new program will supplement Interpol's existing efforts. "Counterfeiting activity is evolving so rapidly" and becoming more common, he said.

 

As a result, one thrust of the program will be to try to more quickly spot new trends in which drugs are being counterfeited, where the crime rings are based and where they are distributing fake medicines, Lechleiter said. "This is really meant to cement some of these efforts together," he said. "After the initial (three-year) period, depending on the results, we can certainly extend that out." 

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Johnson & Johnson Announces Opening of London Innovation Centre

Centre to Serve as European Hub to Accelerate Innovation across the Healthcare Landscape

London (13 March 2013) – Johnson & Johnson today announced the opening of the Johnson & Johnson Innovation centre in London, one of four regional hubs being established this year in the world's leading innovation hotspots.  A part of Johnson & Johnson Innovation, the goal of the London innovation centre is to accelerate the best early stage science in the world and advance the development of new healthcare solutions.

"Britain has a worldwide reputation for excellence in innovation - the investment by Johnson & Johnson here demonstrates this and I am delighted to welcome this new centre to the UK," says UK Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt, who will be speaking at the Innovation Expo 2013 on Wednesday.

Η GlaxoSmithKline συζητά για παραγωγή φαρμάκων στην Ελλάδα

Σε συζητήσεις για ευρωπαϊκή παραγωγή φαρμάκων σε ελληνικό έδαφος βρίσκεται το τελευταίο διάστημα η βρετανική φαρμακευτική GlaxoSmithKline σύμφωνα με δημοσιογραφικές πληροφορίες.

Σύμφωνα με το ρεπορτάζ, στελέχη της πολυεθνικής έχουν ήδη κοινοποιήσει την πρόθεσή τους για παραγωγή στην Ελλάδα στην πολιτική ηγεσία του υπουργείου Υγείας, η οποία και μοιράστηκε την πληροφορία σε στενό κύκλο συνομιλητών της. Η εδώ θυγατρική της πολυεθνικής, επιβεβαιώνει την πληροφορία, εντούτοις κρατά κλειστά χαρτιά σχετικά με τις λεπτομέρειες του σχεδίου.

Σε περίπτωση που κλείσει το deal, και εφόσον η πρόταση περιλαμβάνει και παραγωγική μονάδα, η GlaxoSmithKline θα είναι η δεύτερη μεγάλη πολυεθνική φαρμακευτική εταιρεία που πραγματοποιεί επενδύσεις στην Ελλάδα, μετά τη συμφωνία για την παραγωγική μονάδα της Boehringer Ingelheim στο Κορωπί πριν από περίπου ένα χρόνο. 

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2012 Best Places to Work in Healthcare Sales Jobs

The results are in! Over 1,600 medical sales professionals voted, and Medtronic is officially the Best Place to Work in Healthcare Sales. Last year’s winner, Johnson & Johnson, was a close second, with Stryker coming in third. 

These three healthcare companies were chosen most often from a list of Fortune 500 companies in the medical/pharmaceutical sectors. But voters also had the chance to write in their preferred company, and considering more than half of all respondents (55%) said they would prefer to work for a medium-sized company, it’s not surprising that many of them did. 

This year’s list of winners and honorable mentions features healthcare companies large and small, representing a variety of product specialties – much like the MedReps community itself.

Once again, the majority of survey respondents (56%) said they would prefer to work for a medical device or medical equipment company, so it’s no surprise that medical device companies came in strong overall. But when broken down by sector, the results get more interesting. 

For medical device and equipment, Medtronic was still the winner, but Stryker came in second and Johnson & Johnson third. This can be explained by the fact that many of the votes for J&J were cast by those seeking work in pharmaceuticals, biopharma, and medical supplies, as evidenced by the fact that Johnson & Johnson was voted the first choice for pharma and supplies/disposables, and third for biopharma. 

From small start-ups to industry giants, medical sales and marketing professionals can find opportunities with a wide variety of healthcare companies. Knowing what you want is critical to every job seeker’s search, but just as important, is flexibility. Not everyone will successfully land Medtronic jobs, Johnson & Johnson jobs, or Stryker jobs, but there are plenty of other growing healthcare companies that offer competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits. The only question is which company is the right one for you? 

Now that we know who the winners are, the obvious question is, why? What qualities do these medical companies have that are most attractive to medical sales job seekers?