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 »

This morning I read about a public–private collaboration that reflects many of the latest trends in the drug industry today. The project began when the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) created the 21st Century Biodefense (21CB) initiative to enhance the nation’s biosecurity. Robert J. Cindrich, who is leading the initiative, said in a press release that the project’s goal was to foster advances in vaccine development and manufacturing. Battelle (Columbus, OH), a research and development organization, IBM (Armonk, NY), Merck (Whitehouse Station, NJ), and GE Healthcare (Waukesha, WI) have all joined the collaboration so far. Read more »

Many companies throughout industry are depending on Rx-360, the international pharmaceutical supply-chain consortium launched last year, to help ease the burden of protecting their ever-lengthening supply chains. 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 »

These days, mandatory furloughs and staff cuts have employees in all industries nervously glancing over their shoulders. The pharmaceutical industry is no exception. Last week, Merck (Whitehouse Station, NJ) revealed plans to reduce its workforce by 15% by the end of 2012. 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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Pharmaceutical supply-chain managers have yet another item to step up their control of: tractor-trailers. A critical part of the delivery of supply, these large trucks have been used by many pharmaceutical companies for years to transport raw materials, ingredients, and final drug products. Cargo theft has always been a concern, but that concern is now growing. Read more »

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 »

These days, research scientists, much like Rodney Dangerfield, can’t get any respect. The latest evidence of this arrived on Friday, when AstraZeneca (London) proposed to cut 3500 research and development (R&D) jobs by 2014. Read more »

Haiti is the only nation in the Latin American and Caribbean region still considered a least developed country (LDC) by the United Nations. After this month’s earthquake devastated the nation of 9.7 million, it has been heartwarming to see hundreds of disaster relief crews and humanitarian organizations respond to the crisis. Pharmaceutical companies have been part of the picture as well—delivering millions of dollars in funds and medicines, either directly to Haiti or through nonprofit organizations. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is among the many pharmaceutical manufacturers, including Pfizer, Abbott Laboratories, Amgen, Merck, Eli Lilly, contributing aid to Haiti. Read more »