Resistance to the social networking revolution has been particularly high amongst pharmaceutical industry professionals, though now it seems that more and more are coming round to the idea. Interestingly, it’s not only the pharma elite that are jumping on the bandwagon; so too are government agencies and, most notably, the FDA. Read more »

Prostate cancer remains one of the most common cancers and the second-leading cause of cancer death in American men, according to the American Cancer Society. So far, treatments for prostate cancer include drugs that affect the entire body, instead of only cancer cells. Work by a team of researchers at Purdue University offers hope they have found a new method of not only finding and targeting these cancer cells, but also carry therapeutic drugs directly to the site of infection. Read more »

Last week, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) and the Generic Pharmaceutical Association (GPhA) released dueling statements about the proposal to establish an approval pathway for follow-on biologics that the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) is considering. Are the two antagonists advancing the debate? Read more »

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) announced this week that it is creating a new committee of its board of directors dedicated to small biopharmaceutical companies. The committee will be composed of full and research associate members. In a separate item, late last month, Roche confirmed that it was leaving PhRMA to join the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), the US-based trade group representing the biotechnology industry, in the wake of Roche’s recent acquisition of Genentech. Taken on one level, these moves simply reflect an organizational change by a well-established association to better serve and broaden its membership and the strategic shift of one member company. On another level, however, these moves reveal broader dynamics shaping the focus of the pharmaceutical industry. Read more »

President Obama plans to nominate geneticist Francis S. Collins director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), according to a White House statement released Wednesday. Collins led the Human Genome Project and served as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health from 1993-2008. Read more »

Driving to the office today, I heard a talk by Bob Franks, president of the Healthcare Institute of New Jersey, on the local radio station 101.5FM. Although New Jersey spent $7 billion on R&D in 2008, said Franks, the state stands a chance of losing its stance as the pharma capital of the US—and really of the world—in the coming years. Not only are China, Singapore, and Ireland taking R&D as well as manufacturing dollars out of the state, but New Jersey-based pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies also face stiff competition close to home. Read more »

Congress has taken up the Obama administration’s goal of making healthcare more affordable by introducing various strategies for reducing the cost of prescription drugs. But the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) have resisted several of Congress’s initiatives, and cost control has been elusive so far. Read more »

The US Food and Drug Administration announced yesterday it is requiring a black box warning for two drugs used to aid smoking cessation, Chantix (varenicline, Pfizer, New York) and Zyban (bupropion, GlaxoSmithKline, London). Read more »