Sourcing, procurement, and supply-chain professionals from the pharmaceutical industry and their suppliers are gathering this week in New York City at DCAT Week, an annual event of educational programs and business-networking opportunities organized by the Drug, Chemical and Associated Technologies Association. (DCAT). The first day of the event kicked off on Monday with an education program addressing the impact of changing market fundamentals on innovator-drug and generic-drug companies. Read more »

Company websites, news websites, other content-based websites, and microblogging sites such as Twitter, are important vehicles of communication for disseminating information. A challenge for stakeholders in the pharmaceutical industry—the public at large, patients, medical personnel, drug companies, and regulators—is to have a mechanism for how that information can be effectively and responsibly communicated. Read more »

Although the healthcare debate has dominated the news headlines as of late, an equally important consideration for the pharmaceutical industry is the effort by Congress to pass legislation on patent reform. Congress may be moving closing to that goal. On Feb. 25, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued a statement that lawmakers have reached a tentative agreement on reforming the country’s patent system. Read more »

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America’s (PhRMA) announcement earlier this month that current President and CEO Billy Tauzin will step down at the end of June has raised the question of who will lead the association representing the innovator-drug industry. PhRMA says that it has already begun a search, so what are some of the key issues that the association should consider in finding a new chief policy advocate? Read more »

Handling the vast amount of data that can be generated from scientific research, including pharmaceutical research such as genome sequencing, can be a formidable task. Researchers may not be able to efficiently manage this task through the use of personal computers (PCs) alone, nor do they have access to supercomputers or other advanced information-technology (IT) systems. The emerging model of cloud computing, an advance in computational computing, seeks to address researchers’ difficulties by creating a community resource of computational and processing power accessible on demand through PCs. Last week Microsoft and the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a partnership to increase access to cloud computing for NSF-supported researchers.

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The announcement by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation late last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the foundation will commit $10 billion during the next 10 years to help research, develop, and deliver vaccines in poor and developing countries is an important pledge for global public health, a commitment that the foundation is also hoping that governments and the private sector will participate in as well. Read more »

Scientific innovation and technology are at the core of long-term economic health, so how do the United States and other developed nations compare with each other and with the fast-growing economies in Russia, China, India, and Brazil? And what has been the impact of the current financial crisis on investment in innovation? Read more »

The start of a new year, particularly a new decade, brings a sense of resolve that helps to bring a clarity of purpose. Looking back at 2009, we have chronicled much change in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries—the megamergers, the impact of the financial crisis on the emerging pharma sector, slowing pharmaceutical industry growth, the rise of emerging markets, and the resulting changes on the supplier base. All important concerns, but in the spirit of the beginning of a new year and decade, I would like to take a moment to look at the heart of the matter for the pharmaceutical industry—the promise of new drug development. 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 »

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 »