Industry News
Big
Pharma self-medicates in a bid to lift ailing returns - July 27, 2008
Big pharmaceutical companies are looking for new sources of profit. Many
blockbuster medicines are coming off patent and prices for prescription drugs
are falling as governments and health insurers demand bigger discounts. In the
US
, the public has turned against the drug firms, which for years
could push through huge price increases thanks to their marketing clout and
influence on Capitol Hill.
Should
Doctors be Selling Drugs for the Pharmaceutical Industry?– June 20,
2008
Are senior doctors who help drug companies sell their
drugs independent experts or just drug representatives in disguise, asks Ray
Moynihan from the University of Newcastle in Australia, in the British Medical
Journal.
Experts say the data reflect not just worsening public
health but better medicines for chronic conditions and more aggressive
treatment by doctors. For example, more people are now taking blood pressure
and cholesterol-lowering medicines because they need them, said Dr. Daniel W.
Jones, president of the American Heart Association.
In addition, there is the pharmaceutical industry's
relentless advertising. With those factors unlikely to change, doctors say the
proportion of Americans on chronic medications can only grow.
Drug
Spending Moves Up for Diabetes, Down for Cholesterol - May 15, 2008
In health spending, how many people are being treated
for a disease can be a lot less important than how much it costs to treat each
person. That’s what we took from this report out today from Medco, the pharmacy
benefits manager.
Use of diabetes drugs increased only 2.3% last year,
but spending rose 12%. The big driver was the introduction of new, expensive
medicines that replace or are added to older, cheaper ones.
Why
isn't the richest country in the world the healthiest? - July 3,
2007
Americans die younger and spend more years disabled
than our counterparts in Canada and Europe. Our infant mortality rate is
higher, too. And yet, even though the most common objections to nationalized
health care from its opponents in the U.S. are that it's too expensive, too
restrictive and too inefficient, we spend way more money on health care than
they do. Why, if our health care is the best in the world and we spend more
money on it than anyone else and the free market is a marvel of efficiency,
aren't our results the best in the world?
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