Good morning, everyone, and welcome back. We hope the long holiday weekend was enjoyable and relaxing, but all things must pass, as they say, which means the time has come to resume the unrelenting routine of deadlines, meetings, and the like. So, as always, we are reaching for a few cups of stimulation to cope. And, yes, you are invited to join us. And of course, here are some tidbits, too. Hope you have a good day and do keep in touch …
A mandatory marketing code for drug makers, which the Indian government promised will replace a voluntary code in operation since January of last year, will have strong penal provisions to deter companies from bribing doctors with freebies to prescribe their drugs, the Economic Times reports. “In the current form, the code is too mild,” says a senior official in the chemicals and fertilizers ministry.
An environmental group urged European regulators to reject a Novartis request for a seven-year exemption worth about $50 million from European Union restrictions at a plant in Ireland, the Times of London reports. The European Chemicals Agency is considering an application from Novartis to continue using diglyme, a toxic chemical that will be banned in the EU next year, to make indacaterol, which is used to treat lung diseases.
Michael Weinstein, the activist behind a contentious ballot measure in California to lower drug prices and a pill that is designed to prevent HIV, is widely vilified by both drug makers and some AIDS activists. “I felt as if I were standing next to Satan,” Michael Emanuel Rajner told STAT about the only time he met Weinstein, who heads the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which runs a string of clinics and pharmacies around the country.
A New Jersey judge dismissed two lawsuits filed by women who blamed Johnson & Johnson talcum powder for their ovarian cancers because they failed to produce sufficient evidence the powder caused their cancer, Bloomberg News writes. Separately, Rio Tinto was named in other US lawsuits filed by ovarian cancer sufferers who allege their use of talcum powder sourced from the company’s mines led to their medical condition, the Sydney Morning Herald says.
The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence rejected Roche’s Cotellic and Zelboraf combination for patients with a certain type of advanced skin cancer, PharmaTimes reports.
Elite Pharmaceuticals was sent a warning letter by the US Food and Drug Administration for failing to adequately monitor adverse drug experiences, InPharma Technologist.
Danaher agreed to buy Cepheid, a molecular diagnostics company, in a deal valued at about $4 billion, including debt, according to Bloomberg News.
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Mr Ed, I believe the phrase you were echoing was ‘this too shall pass.’ When speaking about the holiday weekend recently passed, I would support a variation on ‘All good things must come to an end.” Or to put it more succinctly – “Happy Tuesday!”
Indeed it was a good day, Observer, as there was nary a story about Epipen and only a soupcon about pharmaceutical greed. Alas the week is still young, and we have yet to hear from MAPA (Mothers Against Peanut Allergies).