We take for granted that drinking tap water is not going to alter our mood and that eating salmon is not going to throw our hormones out of balance. But trace amounts of pharmaceuticals have been found in drinking water and aquatic life, raising questions about how these chemicals could affect human health. Local and federal governments began to address the issue this year, and a new project by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could be the basis for future solutions. Read more »

This week sanofi-aventis agreed to acquire the consumer healthcare company Chattem for $1.9 billion, maker of such products as Selsun Blue haircare products and Gold Bond medicated powders and lotions. In a press release, sanofi says the move is part of its strategy of including consumer healthcare and over-the-counter products (OTC) as part of its core growth plans. The move also reflects Big Pharma’s increased interest in building some targeted revenue streams outside of innovator prescription drugs. Read more »

Art imitates life, and sometimes drug-delivery mechanisms do, too. Scientists often draw inspiration from natural agents and the body’s processes when developing carriers for therapies. Synthetic red blood cells are a new product of this strategy that seems to raise new possibilities in drug delivery. Read more »

As if the US community isn’t already paranoid enough about the H1N1 swine flu virus and its vaccine, this week, Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of the sanofi-aventis Group in France, recalled 800,000 prefilled vaccines.

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There has been a lot of talk in the media recently about a tax proposal in the UK that should offer companies more incentive to invest in innovative industries, such as pharma and biotech. The proposal, dubbed the ‘patent box’ was announced in the UK HM Treasury’s Pre-Budget Report 2009. Read more »

Nanotechnology offers great potential for the pharmaceutical industry. French researchers recently reported on the use of porous hybrid crystalline solids as nanocarriers in drug delivery and as a possible tool in theranostics, or the application of diagnostics in the development of personalized medicines. Read more »

Despite, or because of, economic difficulties and meager pipelines, the recent past has seen many drug companies investigate alternative delivery methods for new and established products. A new deal between GlaxoSmithKline (GSK, London) and Intercell (Vienna) reflects this trend and raises hopes for the development of innovative routes of administration. Read more »

The Organization for Professionals in Regulatory Affairs (TOPRA) is a non-profit, non-political organization that seeks to advance the status of the regulatory profession through education and the provision of information to its members. Its members are drawn from industry, regulatory agencies and consultancies from over 40 countries. Pharm. Exec. Europe (PEE) spoke to TOPRA’s president-elect, Dr Zubair Hussain, head of regulatory affairs for Pfizer UK and Ireland, about what he sees as pharma’s key regulatory challenges for 2010 and beyond. Read more »

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) or corporate citizenship, or how a company’s business activities are in line with broader economic, social, or environmental goals, is not a new concept, but how CSR may be applied is continually being shaped by changing world events. Late last month, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis, through the Novartis Foundation for Sustainable Development, held a symposium on “new world economic ethics” to examine the implications of the global financial and economic crisis on business ethics and practices. The symposium follows the presentation of a new manifesto, the Global Economic Ethic–Consequences for Global Businesses, at the United Nations (UN) in October, signaling another phase in CSR. Read more »

Last week, Genzyme’s (Cambridge, MA) Allston Landing, Massachusetts, plant resumed production of Cerezyme, the company’s treatment for Gaucher’s disease. Genzyme presumably found and eliminated the source of contamination that had been reported weeks earlier. You’d think that after putting out this latest fire at the troubled plant, the company would be justified in heaving a sigh of relief. Read more »