"Health & Medical News"

CALPIRG released a new analysis today examining drug companies’ self-imposed limits on their marketing to doctors – efforts that include lavish wining-and-dining and thousands of dollars worth of gifts. The report, Playing By Their Own Rules: An Analysis of Drug Company Gifts to Doctors, finds that these limits are riddled with exceptions, and that some companies have evaded even the least restrictive limits on their marketing.   
Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: unranked [?]

The Food and Drug Administration is contemplating the establishment of a class of medications that would be available only after counseling from a pharmacist but without a physician’s prescription. Physicians widely oppose the development, arguing that it could disrupt continuity of care and put patients at risk.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: unranked [?]

An anti-psychotic drug already approved in the U.S. to treat adults and adolescents with schizophrenia may soon be available for youngsters age 10 to 17 years of age suffering from bipolar disorder.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given priority review status to the drug Abilify which is manufactured by Bristol-Myers Squibb and Otsuka Pharmaceutical.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: unranked [?]

A multi-million-dollar class-action lawsuit has been filed by a group of counties in Kentucky over problems associated with the powerful prescription painkiller OxyContin, Pharmaceutical News reported Oct. 7.

The lawsuit alleges that OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma committed fraud and was guilty of conspiracy, negligence and creating a public nuisance in its marketing of the drug, which was at the heart of an epidemic of prescription-drug abuse and overdose deaths in Kentucky and elsewhere in the U.S.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Conducting clinical trials overseas is nothing new, however, increasing access to capital and investment in emerging countries does appear to be relatively recent. Two new pieces (links at end) detail the move into China by pharmaceutical companies. I have covered this notion in a previous post.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 5% [?]

SACRAMENTO—The Senate Health Committee today passed SB 1683, the Pharmaceutical Drug Right-to-Know Act. The bill, authored by Senator Jack Scott (Alta Dena) and sponsored by CALPIRG, would require drug companies to release the results of all their health studies for every drug sold in California.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 10% [?]