The legislative battle for healthcare reform ended on Thursday night Mar. 25 following the passage by both houses of Congress of a slightly amended version of “The Healthcare and Education Reconciliation Act” (HR 4872), the so-called “fixer bill” to the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (HR 3590), the healthcare reform legislation that was passed by the US House of Representatives on Sunday Mar. 21 and signed into law (Public Law No,111-148) by President Barack Obama on Tuesday Mar. 23. The reconciliation legislation (HR 4872) now goes to the President for his signature, which would clear the last hurdle for healthcare reform after a grueling week of intense debate and parliamentary efforts to both advance and stop final passage. The debate on the myriad of measures in the healthcare reform package will no doubt continue, but as the dust settles, at least momentarily, what are some of the implications for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries? Read more »

I’ve written previously about the potential health dangers that discarded drugs pose to our water supply. This year, 13 states are considering bills that would create drug take-back programs. Maine’s House of Representatives recently endorsed a plan that would require drug manufacturers to set up and operate programs to collect, transport, manage, and dispose of unwanted drugs. 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 »

The US Senate’s vote this past weekend to proceed with debate on a legislative proposal for healthcare reform portends—what by all accounts—promises to be yet another rigorous round of policy and political opinion. A Google search for the past week alone shows that almost 500,000 blogs (459,049 at the time of posting of this blog) have been posted in response to the Senate’s action to move forward with considering healthcare reform. In the swirl of this public opinion, where does the pharmaceutical industry stand? Read more »

A new study published in the American Journal of Public Health claims that prescription drug direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) can be harmful to a person’s health. According to the researchers, prescription drug advertisements are “not doing a good job of helping consumers to make better decisions about their health”. Read more »

The proliferation of online health information and media vehicles such as blogs and social-networking sites create a new problem for the consumer—how to judge the reliability of such information. To address that problem, the US Food and Drug Administration is holding hearings this week, Nov. 12–13, in Washington DC, regarding the promotion of FDA-regulated medical products using the Internet and social-media tools. The hearings, which will include participation from pharmaceutical trade associations, drug companies, consumer groups, and media representatives, is the first step in a public dialogue that FDA is having as it evaluates how the statutory provisions, regulations, and policies concerning advertising and promotional labeling should be applied to product-related information on the Internet and newer media technologies. 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 »

Following President Barak Obama’s address on healthcare reform to a joint session of Congress this week, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries reiterated their overall support for healthcare reform. Although not commenting in detail on specific measures offered by the President or Congressional proposals, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries will be important players in the upcoming weeks and months as the final proposals for healthcare reform materialize. Read more »

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) announced this week that it is creating a new committee of its board of directors dedicated to small biopharmaceutical companies. The committee will be composed of full and research associate members. In a separate item, late last month, Roche confirmed that it was leaving PhRMA to join the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), the US-based trade group representing the biotechnology industry, in the wake of Roche’s recent acquisition of Genentech. Taken on one level, these moves simply reflect an organizational change by a well-established association to better serve and broaden its membership and the strategic shift of one member company. On another level, however, these moves reveal broader dynamics shaping the focus of the pharmaceutical industry. Read more »