Accusations of insularity and interference haunt the Teva board

December 29, 2013 6:09 pm

Accusations of insularity and interference haunt the Teva board

By Andrew Jack

Even by the standards of the regular leaks of sensitive corporate material from Teva, images on Israeli television last October showed a letter from senior management to its directors was still explosive. Read more of this post

A.D.H.D. Experts Re-evaluate Study’s Zeal for Drugs

December 29, 2013

A.D.H.D. Experts Re-evaluate Study’s Zeal for Drugs

By ALAN SCHWARZ

Twenty years ago, more than a dozen leaders in child psychiatry received $11 million from the National Institute of Mental Health to study an important question facing families with children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: Is the best long-term treatment medication, behavioral therapy or both? Read more of this post

India’s Efforts to Aid Poor Worry Drug Makers; Indian government threatened to allow production of less costly versions of an effective treatment for a form of breast cancer, a move the pharmaceutical industry says threatens the system for discovering cures

December 29, 2013

India’s Efforts to Aid Poor Worry Drug Makers

By GARDINER HARRIS

NEW DELHI — Alka Kudesia needs an expensive drug to treat her breast cancer, but refuses to tell her children for fear they will take out loans to buy the medicine and spend the rest of their lives in debt. Read more of this post

Allergan CEO David Pyott made Botox a best seller around the world, launching the field of “medical aesthetics.”

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2013

Smoothing Out Allergan’s Wrinkles

By DYAN MACHAN | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

CEO David Pyott made Botox a best seller around the world, launching the field of “medical aesthetics.”

Many companies made America, but Allergan remade it, from wrinkle-free foreheads on down. A leader in medical devices and specialty pharmaceuticals—Botox is its biggest brand—the Irvine, Calif.-based company is riding a powerful trend toward self-improvement—of brow, bust, and critical spaces in between. Read more of this post

China to Blacklist Health Firms Implicated in Bribery

China to Blacklist Health Firms Implicated in Bribery

Listed Companies to Be Barred for Two Years From Selling in the Relevant Province

LAURIE BURKITT

Updated Dec. 27, 2013 11:09 a.m. ET

BEIJING—China’s health regulators are rolling out a corporate blacklist for drug and medical-device companies implicated in commercial bribery, a move aimed at stamping out corruption in the country’s graft-ridden health-care sector. Read more of this post

Hepatitis Vaccine Maker Beijing Tiantan Slumps After Baby Deaths in China

Hepatitis Vaccine Maker Slumps After Baby Deaths: Shanghai Mover

Beijing Tiantan Biological Products Corp. (600161) plunged by as much as the 10 percent daily limit in Shanghai trading after media reports linked the company’s hepatitis B vaccine to the death of two infants in China. Read more of this post

Smart Cancer Research: David Van Andel and his wife are devoted to finding practical cancer treatments

December 27, 2013, 10:54 A.M. ET

Smart Cancer Research

By Robert Milburn

At the Van Andel Institute, a cancer research organization based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, impatience with the medical status quo is baked into its DNA. Currently, it takes ten years and a billion dollars to get a drug approved by the FDA, says David Van Andel, the institute’s chairman and CEO. That’s simply unacceptable, he says. Read more of this post

Merck is working on a plan to reshape its once-storied research-and-development unit that would create international innovation hubs tapping into drug research outside of its labs

Merck Plans Radical Overhaul of Drug R&D Unit

PETER LOFTUS And JONATHAN D. ROCKOFF

Updated Dec. 27, 2013 4:50 p.m. ET

Merck MRK +0.14% & Co. is working on a plan to radically reshape its once-storied research-and-development unit that would create international innovation hubs tapping into drug research outside of its labs. Read more of this post

Elderly Homes Weak Link in Battle Against Superbugs

Elderly Homes Weak Link in Battle Against Superbugs

New findings are giving credence to the idea that superbugs, which resist the most powerful antibiotics, thrive just where the frailest people dwell: nursing homes. A report published last month in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology found that more than a quarter of residents in 26 Orange County, California, nursing homes carried a bacterium known as MRSA, a rate that surprised researchers. Another study in April found that retirement-home residents in one area of Japan had three times more of another type of resistant bug than healthy locals. Read more of this post

Du Weimin’s Biokangtai under pressure following infant deaths

Du Weimin’s Biokangtai under pressure following infant deaths

Staff Reporter

2013-12-27

Du Weimin, chairman of Shenzhen-based biotech firm Biokangtai and a renowned figure in China’s biotech industry, is facing a stern challenge to his career due to an incident which involves the death of seven infants. Read more of this post

The Death of the Bedside Manner; ObamaCare is speeding the decline in the quality of medical practice.

Marc Siegel: The Death of the Bedside Manner

ObamaCare is speeding the decline in the quality of medical practice.

MARC SIEGEL

Dec. 26, 2013 7:17 p.m. ET

‘It is as painful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be born,” James Joyce wrote famously in his masterpiece “Ulysses.” I recently had such an experience when my office manager—who protects me from the daily insurance grind of referrals and approvals and pre-certifications and blood drawing—was out sick. Thus the veil was lifted from my eyes, and I awoke to the harsh realities of our medical future. Read more of this post

Fake Knee Surgery as Good as Real Procedure, Study Finds; Result Likely to Fuel Debate Over Common Orthopedic Operation

Fake Knee Surgery as Good as Real Procedure, Study Finds

Result Likely to Fuel Debate Over Common Orthopedic Operation

JOSEPH WALKER

Dec. 25, 2013 5:10 p.m. ET

A fake surgical procedure is just as good as real surgery at reducing pain and other symptoms in some patients suffering from torn knee cartilage, according to a new study that is likely to fuel debate over one of the most common orthopedic operations. Read more of this post

Ethics: End of the hard sell? Pharmaceutical groups are finding their marketing and sales tactics under increasing scrutiny

December 26, 2013 6:20 pm

Ethics: End of the hard sell?

By Andrew Jack

Pharmaceutical groups are finding their marketing and sales tactics under increasing scrutiny

When Johnson & Johnson wanted to boost prescriptions of Natrecor, a heart medicine, it channelled more than $100,000 through a subsidiary company to a sympathetic nurse. In exchange, she spoke favourably about the drug in talks, trained colleagues on how to use it, and put her name on an article in a medical journal to boost sales. Read more of this post

Shenzhen Hepalink agreed to acquire Scientific Protein Laboratories LLC. for $337.5 million to strengthen the quality of Shenzhen’s blood clot prevention drug

ecember 26, 2013, 7:25 a.m. ET

Heparin Maker Shenzhen Hepalink to Acquire U.S. Supplier

By Everdeen Mason

Shenzhen Hepalink Pharmaceutical Co. agreed to acquire Scientific Protein Laboratories LLC. for $337.5 million to strengthen the quality of Shenzhen’s blood clot prevention drug. Shenzhen, the Chinese maker of blood-thinner Heparin, is buying Scientific Protein, a supplier of pharmaceutical ingredients with 204 employees based in Wisconsin. Both companies say the deal will expand their markets and allow better access to raw materials to manufacture heparin. Prior to its initial public offering more than three years ago, Shenzhen battled claims that its product, made from pig intestines, is tainted. With the deal “Hepalink will be able to further enhance the stability and safety of the supply of the heparin product raw materials,” said Shenzhen Chief Executive Li Li. The company will also be able to open new markets and invest more in research and development, he added. Scientific Protein said there will be no changes to its operations after the acquisition is complete. The expected close of the deal wasn’t announced Thursday.

E.R. Costs for Mentally Ill Soar, and Hospitals Seek Better Way

December 25, 2013

E.R. Costs for Mentally Ill Soar, and Hospitals Seek Better Way

By JULIE CRESWELL

RALEIGH, N.C. — As darkness fell on a Friday evening over downtown Raleigh, N.C., Michael Lyons, a paramedic supervisor for Wake County Emergency Medical Services, slowly approached the tall, lanky man who was swaying back and forth in a gentle rhythm. Read more of this post

Common Knee Surgery Does Very Little for Some, Study Suggests

December 25, 2013

Common Knee Surgery Does Very Little for Some, Study Suggests

By PAM BELLUCK

A popular surgical procedure worked no better than fake operations in helping people with one type of common knee problem, suggesting that thousands of people may be undergoing unnecessary surgery, a new study in The New England Journal of Medicine reports. Read more of this post

5 High-Tech Fixes for Patients; Health advances more easily reveal causes of illness, cost of care faster

5 High-Tech Fixes for Patients

Health advances more easily reveal causes of illness, cost of care faster

LAURA LANDRO

Dec. 23, 2013 7:24 p.m. ET

From virtual doctor visits to online diagnoses, information technology is rapidly changing the way patients interact with the health system. Here are some innovations that are catching on more broadly and could improve care in 2014:

Monitor Long-Distance

An electronic intensive-care unit, or eICU, lets critical-care doctors and nurses check on patients in several hospitals from a remote command center with a bank of monitors displaying patients’ vital signs. They can alert bedside staff if they see a subtle change in a patient that could signal a worsening condition. Remote monitoring by specialists is also catching on for emergency rooms and surgical units to help evaluate patients with stroke, seizures and other conditions. Read more of this post

How Lobbyists Will Keep You Hooked on Vitamins

How Lobbyists Will Keep You Hooked on Vitamins

By Paul A. Offit

December 21st 20135:45 AM

No matter how many studies show you’re wasting money and possibly harming your health, dietary supplement makers are selling their own version of science—and reality. This week, the Annals of Internal Medicine—one of the world’s leading medical journals—published three studies evaluating the benefits of vitamins and dietary supplements. The first study determined whether healthy people who received daily multivitamins had a lesser incidence of cancer or heart disease and whether they lived longer. The study was quite large, involving about 400,000 adults. Study participants were randomly divided into two groups: One group received daily multivitamins; the other didn’t. The authors found no difference in any medical outcome. Read more of this post

Glenmark Goes West for $250 Billion Drugs Opportunity; “The hope is to be the first innovative pharma company coming out of India.”

Glenmark Goes West for $250 Billion Drugs Opportunity

Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (GNP), the Indian company that’s reaped more than $200 million selling rights to its drugs, is seeking to introduce its first biotechnology medicine in the U.S. or Europe as early as 2017. A biologic remedy for ulcerative colitis, a bowel disorder affecting 1.5 million patients globally, is progressing through U.S. trials after being licensed to Paris-based Sanofi and may come to market from 2017 to 2020, according to Glenmark’s Managing Director Glenn Saldanha. Talks with possible licensees for biologic pain and inflammation drugs have begun, he said. Read more of this post

A New Focus on Depression; Depression has proved remarkably hard to subdue, but cooperative biomedical research efforts are starting to show promise

DECEMBER 23, 2013, 3:28 PM

A New Focus on Depression

By RICHARD A. FRIEDMAN, M.D.

When will we ever get depression under control?

Of all the major illnesses, mental or physical, depression has been one of the toughest to subdue. Despite the ubiquity of antidepressant drugs — there are now 26 to choose from — only a third of patients with major depression will experience a full remission after the first round of treatment, and successive treatments with different drugs will give some relief to just 20 to 25 percent more. Read more of this post

France claims breakthrough with artificial human heart

December 22, 2013 2:19 pm

France claims breakthrough with artificial human heart

By Hugh Carnegy in Paris

France has claimed a breakthrough in human organ technology with the first implant of an artificial heart designed to replace the need for a transplant from another person. President François Hollande, anxious to lift amood of pessimism  over the country’s economy, hailed the event as an example of French innovation. Read more of this post

Unwanted Memories Erased in Electroconvulsive Therapy Experiment; Scientists Search for New Treatments for Mental Trauma

Unwanted Memories Erased in Electroconvulsive Therapy Experiment

Scientists Search for New Treatments for Mental Trauma

GAUTAM NAIK

Updated Dec. 22, 2013 7:54 p.m. ET

Scientists have zapped an electrical current to people’s brains to erase distressing memories, part of an ambitious quest to better treat ailments such as mental trauma, psychiatric disorders and drug addiction. Read more of this post

TCM Still Struggling to Find Cure for Its FDA Woes

12.09.2013 17:47

TCM Still Struggling to Find Cure for Its FDA Woes

Traditional Chinese medicines usually do not get very far in U.S. testing, and even the one that has made it into the final round has a ways to go

By staff reporter He Chunmei and intern reporter Li Huiling

(Beijing) – In November, the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) Fuzheng Huayu Tablets passed the second phase of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) clinical testing. Read more of this post

What Anesthesia Can Teach Us About Consciousness

December 10, 2013

What Anesthesia Can Teach Us About Consciousness

By MAGGIE KOERTH-BAKER

More than a decade ago, a 43-year-old woman went to a surgeon for a hysterectomy. She was put under, and everything seemed to be going according to plan, until, for a horrible interval, her anesthesia stopped working. She couldn’t open her eyes or move her fingers. She tried to breathe, but even that most basic reflex didn’t seem to work; a tube was lodged in her throat. She was awake and aware on the operating table, but frozen and unable to tell anyone what was happening. Read more of this post

Pharma Cost Cuts Could Be a Tonic for Quintiles

HELEN THOMAS

Dec. 20, 2013 12:44 p.m. ET

The pharmaceutical industry is getting into virtual reality. Investors wanting to play the game should consider U.S.-listed Quintiles Transnational Holdings. Q +0.58% Drug makers have in recent years turned to contract-research organizations to carry out large clinical trials needed to win approval for new medicines, an outsourcing trend known as “virtualization.” The global market for outsourced development is about $26 billion, estimates Jefferies. Read more of this post

Health care in America: Going public, and private; The fuss over Obamacare’s teething troubles is obscuring a bigger story for investors: American health care is gradually being both nationalised and privatised

Health care in America: Going public, and private; The fuss over Obamacare’s teething troubles is obscuring a bigger story for investors: American health care is gradually being both nationalised and privatised

Dec 21st 2013 | NEW YORK | From the print edition

FOR the past three months American politicians have been rowing over the disastrous launch of Obamacare’s website, on which people can shop for health insurance. The new online “exchanges”, created under America’s health reforms to provide cheap private care for millions of uninsured people, are so far the most visible element of Obamacare. Once the software glitches are fixed, sellers of private health plans should gain new customers. But in the years ahead they have a far bigger opportunity: as more Americans come to depend on the government to pay for their treatments, more of them will have their publicly funded health care managed in some way by private insurers. Read more of this post

For the Mentally Ill, Finding Treatment Grows Harder

For the Mentally Ill, Finding Treatment Grows Harder

New health-care law may add to crunch for enough treatment

GARY FIELDS and JENNIFER CORBETT DOOREN

Updated Dec. 20, 2013 10:35 p.m. ET

WSJ reporter Gary Fields discusses his series about the shortage of treatment for the mentally ill and its impact on families, communities and the criminal justice system. Read more of this post

Beating Back Pain

DECEMBER 20, 2013, 12:20 PM

Beating Back Pain

By TONY SCHWARTZ

Two months ago, I stepped into a shower in a hotel room in Baton Rouge, La., and felt a slight twinge in my back. I didn’t pay it much mind. I’ve experienced twinges from time to time, but for more than 25 years, I have been essentially free of back pain. Read more of this post