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 »

After much ado, the US House of Representatives passed a healthcare-reform bill this weekend. Drugmakers and commentators are understandably eager to parse the bill to find out what it would mean for the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries. So what’s the verdict? Read more »

In a speech last week to the City Club of San Diego, John Lechleiter, chairman and chief executive officer of Eli Lilly, offered very candid remarks about the state of innovation in the pharmaceutical industry, saying that the engine of biopharmaceutical innovation is “broken.” His comments may be a bitter pill to swallow in light of escalating investment in research and development (R&D), but his frankness may just be the remedy the industry needs to reinvent itself. Read more »

Have you ever considered getting a flu shot but quailed at the sight of the needle? Lots of people hate getting injections, but this delivery method is still the predominant technique for administering biological drugs. Rising demand for vaccines and other biologicals is one factor spurring manufacturers to seek alternative delivery methods that could one day rescue the needlephobic. Read more »

Last Thursday, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) weighed in on a patent issue that will soon be before the Supreme Court. In an amicus brief, BIO argued that the Court should overturn Bilski v. Doll, a decision of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The case involved Bernard L. Bilski’s method for hedging risks in commodities trading. Read more »

President Obama’s plan for lowering the cost of healthcare relies partly on ensuring that affordable generic drugs are available to patients. This strategy is not likely to be palatable to innovator companies, who have tried various ways of delaying generic drugs’ introduction to the market. Read more »

Like a snowball that gets bigger and bigger as it hurtles down the side of a mountain, generic drugs pose an increasingly large threat to branded pharmaceutical companies. Wolters Kluwer Health’s annual analysis reveals that more than 60% of all US prescriptions filled in 2008 were generics. For orally administered medicines, the percentage was even greater. In 2008, 2.4 billion prescriptions were filled for generic drugs, and only 1.4 billion for branded therapies—an unprecedented divide, according to the report.

What’s Big Pharma to do? Read more »

How do you boost a flagging pipeline? One strategy is to enlist more researchers to find promising drug candidates. Two heads are better than one, and the more minds applied to the task, the more likely they will find increasingly elusive new therapies. The Pfizer–Wyeth and Merck–Schering Plough mergers are partly based on this premise.

Trouble is, the premise might not hold water. Read more »

Innovation used to be a term dedicated to a company’s visions for growth. Keeping one eye on the roots of your business and the other on long-term prospects was a smart strategy. Against a backdrop of a nose-diving economy, however, it seems as if “innovation” now has less to do with growth and more to do with survival. Read more »

Is the government doing enough to help us buy drugs at reasonable prices?

Last week, the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a report asserting that taxpayers pay as much as 30% more for prescriptions under Medicare Part D than under other government programs such as Medicaid. Medicare Part D is a privately administered program designed to help the elderly and disabled afford prescription drugs. When it was enacted in January 2006, drug companies were not required to provide discounts. Read more »