If you’re not familiar with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), they are a set of eight targets defined and committed to by the member states of the United Nations in 2000 to reduce extreme poverty worldwide. The idea is to achieve the goals (specific measureable indicators are set for each) by the year 2015. The goals cover issues such as reducing hunger and developing global partnerships, but several of them address health issues, including the Goals 4 and 5, which focus on promoting child and maternal health (e.g., reducing under age-5 mortality and increasing access to reproductive care), and Goal 6,which focuses on combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.

In light of the changing global public health landscape, I think the UN should consider revising the MDGs before 2015, or at least devising a new set of health-based goals when the time comes. Read more »

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearing this morning at 10 am to investigate the recent recall of more than 40 of McNeil Healthcare’s infants’ and children’s medications. See the link on the committee’s website to connect to the live webcast. Read more »

With strong R&D capabilities and a highly educated workforce at the right price, India presents an attractive alternative to European manufacturers facing increased costs at home. Add the growing domestic pharmaceutical market and India looks like the perfect location for a partnership. Read more »

The field of synthetic biology took a step forward last week with the news that researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JVCI, Rockville, MD), a genomic-research organization founded and headed by J. Craig Venter, who helped map the human genome, had successfully constructed the first self-replicating synthetic cell. The work lays the possibility for advancing the technology one day into developing pharmaceuticals, vaccines, biofuels, and other industrial products. Read more »

Research and development (R&D) scientists may have been feeling down in the dumps lately. Many of them have lost their jobs in the last few months as a result of mergers and cost-cutting projects. But these sometimes underappreciated workers may soon get more respect, thanks to a US government initiative. Read more »

It’s been nearly three years since the safety and efficacy of over-the-counter cough and cold medications for young children first came under FDA scrutiny. In the fall of 2008, the agency required that these drug products be relabeled to say they should not be used for children under age 4, and began a review of the drugs’ use for this age group. Industry is still waiting, however, for the agency’s final rule on the use of the products—now delayed until the end of 2010. Read more »

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that some of McNeil Consumer Healthcare’s recalled infants’ Tylenol contained as much as 24% more acetaminophen than it should have, according to a letter the company sent to physicians and poison-control personnel. McNeil’s letter stated that the samples containing the 24% increase did not reach the public, but that the company could not be sure “all the individual bottles were within specification or that 24% would have been the maximum,” according to WSJ. Read more »

In this day and age, many of us believe that men and women have equal rights at work, but this is not always the case, as demonstrated by the result of a gender discrimination class action against Novartis. In a unanimous verdict delivered earlier this week, a New York (USA) jury found the drug giant guilty of discriminating against women in pay, promotional opportunities and pregnancy-related matters. Read more »

Italians are known for their passions. They are passionate about their food, their wine, their art, their design, and in Bologna, they are passionate about their packaging industry. And well they should be. In a time of economic crisis, Italy’s packing industry seems extremely healthy, based on the statistics offered last week by Dr. Guido Corbella, at the Pharmintech exhibition.
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President Barack Obama announced on Monday that he plans to appoint Harold Varmus, a former director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and co-recipient of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, as director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Varmus would replace current director John E. Niederhuber, who became NCI head in 2006. The move follows recent criticism of NCI’s clinical-trial program by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences. Read more »