Those risk disclosures on drug websites? People don't read them, study says

FiercePharma | Beth Snyder Bulik 

Consumers don’t always read the risk information on branded drug websites--even though they say they do, according to new eye-tracking research from the University of Tennessee. Risk disclosures are a hot-button issue in pharma marketing, with some critics accusing brands of downplaying the risks and marketers contending that they follow the rules laid out by the FDA.

For the eye-tracking study, two advertising professors used the technique on 29 seasonal allergy sufferers to determine where and how long they looked at a branded drug website, then followed up with interviews about how much the people read and what they remembered. The participants were told the study was looking at how people look for health information online and that the website was for a new prescription allergy drug.

The key finding? Even though 80% of the participants said they read half or more of the website information, they actually read much less than that and had limited recall of the drug’s risks. Further, the study found consumers focused on the drug’s benefit and generally ignored the risks.

That figure wouldn't necessarily hold true for other drugs, though. Mariea Hoy, who fielded the research along with former UT faculty member Abbey Levenshus, said perceived familiarity in the case of the seasonal allergy drug may have played a role in participants ignoring risks they thought they already knew about or didn’t believe would affect them.

Greek Pharmaceutical Industry: New Action Plan

A Strategic Action Plan for the development of the Greek Pharmaceutical Industry was recently presented aiming to bring together all key sector stakeholders in order to discuss the current state of the Greek pharmaceutical industry and its potential and to present them the necessary actions in order to realize them.
“The development of domestic pharmaceutical industry serves two national goals of critical importance: cutting public pharmaceutical spending and putting a break on a brain drain phenomenon”, Deputy Economy, Development and Tourism Minister Theodora Tzakri noted, adding that an inter-ministerial commission and six working groups are already in place.

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Health Report | Δήμητρα Ευθυμιάδου

Ποια φάρμακα θα αποζημιώνονται από τον ΕΟΠΥΥ, πως θα συνταγογραφούν οι γιατροί, πως θα αλλάξουν οι συσκευασίες φαρμάκων και πολλά άλλα αποφασίζονται σε έκτακτη σύσκεψη. Στα κεντρικά γραφεία του ΕΟΠΥΥ θα βρεθούν την Πέμπτη όλοι εμπλεκόμενοι δημόσιοι φορείς για το φάρμακο, προκειμένου να λάβουν τις τελικές αποφάσεις για την νέα πολιτική φαρμάκου. Στην ευρεία σύσκεψη θα ληφθούν οι αποφάσεις για τις αλλαγές στη φαρμακευτική πολιτική, η οποία θα ενσωματωθεί σε νομοσχέδιο το οποίο αναμένεται να φθάσει στη Βουλή προς τα τέλη Σεπτεμβρίου, σύμφωνα με το υπουργείο Υγείας. Ωστόσο οι όποιες αποφάσεις ληφθούν δεν αναμένεται να ανακοινωθούν επισήμως άμεσα. Άλλωστε η κυβέρνηση φαίνεται ότι επιχειρεί πρώτα να αλλάξει το κλίμα από την ομιλία του πρωθυπουργού στη ΔΕΘ, πριν δημοσιοποιήσει τα μέτρα για το φάρμακο.

The rise of the "unbranded" pharmaceutical ads

Pharmaceutical ads sometimes turn off consumers with their laundry lists of unpleasant side effects, but an increasingly popular type of drug company ad is finding a way around that.

Called “unbranded” ads, these commercials aren’t tied to one specific medication, but are designed to alert consumers to a medical condition. Mylan, which has come under fire for its EpiPen pricing, created one such unbranded campaign earlier this year to alert consumers about the dangers of allergies. Like many other unbranded ad, the commercial’s tone played on the frightening outcome of lacking a medication.

The rise of these sneaky ads come as the annual $5.7 billion pharmaceutical advertising industry is facing increasing criticism. The American Medical Association last year called for a ban on direct-to-consumer advertisements for prescription drugs and medical devices, citing concern that the ads prompt consumers to demand expensive treatments that they don’t need. Critics have also questioned whether there’s a link between increased advertising spending and higher drug prices, neither of which are relenting.

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Brexit means EMA must find a new home, and so much more

FiercePharma | Eric Palmer 

The European Medicines Agency, the drug regulator for Europe, is headquartered in London. The problem is that the U.K. voted Thursday to leave the European Union, meaning the EMA will now have to leave and find a new home. It is one of the countless concerns that affect the pharma industry with Britain’s historic vote to give up on European unity. 

Over the warnings of business leaders in pharma and all other industries, U.K. voters by a 52% to 48% margin opted to quit the E.U. While the vote is not even legally binding, U.K Prime Minister David Cameron has said he would do as voters decided. He has pledged to resign.

The financial reaction was immediate and messy. The London FTSE 100 index sank by 8%, the biggest fall in more than three decades, before recovering slightly to trade down 5%. The broader FTSE 250 index has dropped 7.5%. The pound hit its lowest level against the dollar in 31 years touching $1.3236, as investors tried to puzzle through what the vote means for businesses.

Big Pharma hits another ad-spending high in 2015, thanks to Novo, Valeant and more

Throw another ad spending title on pharma’s growing pile.

Advertising Age’s annual ranking of the 200 leading national advertisers in the U.S. found that pharma industry spending rose more than any other category, increasing overall by 15.6% last year.

And it was way ahead of the rest, too. Travel came in second at 10.1%, while the apparel industry came in third with total ad spending rising by 6.9%. Spending across all categories increased almost unanimously; only the food category dropped, down 2.7%.

And on Ad Age’s top 10 list of the fastest-growing spenders for the year, half were pharma companies. Novo Nordisk ranked highest of those at No. 4 with a 195% spending increase year-over-year to reach $261 million. Valeant Pharmaceuticals was No. 5 with an 88% increase to $441 million, followed by GlaxoSmithKline at No. 6 with a 56% increase to $948 million in ad spending.

Pharm Exec's Top 50 Companies 2016

Pharm Exec’s latest annual listing of the top biopharmaceutical players—now in its 16th year—looks placid on the surface. But a restive marketplace and important transitions taking place in the larger business model of healthcare augers poorly for those inclined to read our numbers as a successful adjustment to the world as it is—because it’s a sure bet that world is going to be different. 

Though the companies represented in the top 50 of global sales leaders have remained remarkably stable over time, their relative positioning within the list continues to shift. This reflects the importance that product launches and innovative campaigns to grow existing medications at every stage of the product life cycle now play in building a sales advantage against truly brutal levels of competition. It helps explain why Pfizer resumes its position this year as the industry’s prescription sales leader, displacing Novartis in the No. 1 ranking by widening its therapeutic franchise in vaccines—a segment that Novartis recently abandoned—with a strong performance for its multi-indication pneumoccocal preventive, Prevnar 13.

MIT prototype machine could make in-house drug production possible

In a lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, all the work that happens in a vast pharmaceutical manufacturing plant happens in a device the size of your kitchen refrigerator.

And it's fast. This prototype machine produces 1,000 pills in 24 hours, faster than it can take to produce some batches in a factory. Allan Myerson, a professor of chemical engineering at MIT and a leader of the effort, says it could become eventually an option for anyone who makes medications, which typically require a lengthy and complex process of crystallization.

"We're giving them an alternative to traditional plants and we're reducing the time it takes to manufacturer a drug," he said.

The Defense Department is funding this project because the devices could go to field hospitals for troops, hard-to-reach areas to help combat a disease outbreak, or be dropped at strategic spots across the U.S.

"If there was an emergency you could have these little plants located all over. You just turn them on and you start turning out different pharmaceuticals that are needed," Myerson said.

Sounds simple? It's not. This mini drug plant represents a sea change in how medications have been made for a long time.

"For roughly two centuries, to be honest," says Tim Jamison, a professor of chemistry at MIT and one of Myerson's partners, along with Klavs Jensen, a professor of chemical engineering at MIT. "The way that we tend to do chemistry is in flasks and beakers and that sort of thing, and we call that batch chemistry -- one batch at a time," he says.

These are the most and least reputable drug companies in the world

Drug companies aren’t exactly known for their reputations. 

But public opinions about them have changed in some surprising ways in recent years, especially amidst recent controversies over the high and rising prices of drugs.

A new analysis from the research consulting firm Reputation Institute evaluated public perceptions of 14 pharmaceutical companies in 7 key areas: 1) products and services, 2) innovation, 3) workplace, 4) governance, 5) citizenship, 6) leadership, and 7) financial performance.

The report found that on average, drug companies continue to be perceived as having a so-so reputation. In fact, people’s opinion of the pharmaceutical industry overall has improved since 2015.

Έρχονται τα φάρμακα "ΓΕΔΙΦΑ"...

Τη δημιουργία της υποκατηγορίας «Γενικής Διάθεσης Φάρμακα» (ΓΕΔΙΦΑ) η οποία θα περιλαμβάνει σκευάσματα που δεν θα διατίθενται αποκλειστικά από τα φαρμακεία, προβλέπει διάταξη του υπουργείου Υγείας στο πολυνομοσχέδιο της κυβέρνησης που κατατίθεται σήμερα με τα υπόλοιπα προαπαιτούμενα για το κλείσιμο της αξιολόγησης.

Τα ΓΕΔΙΦΑ είναι υποκατηγορία των Μη Συνταγογραφούμενων Φαρμάκων (ΜΗΣΥΦΑ). Τα συγκεκριμένα σκευάσματα θα πληρούν αυστηρά κριτήρια και προϋποθέσεις έτσι ώστε η εύκολη πρόσβαση να μη θέτει σε κίνδυνο την υγεία των καταναλωτών.