Guest blog written by Chris Watson, product manager of Exco InTouch.

AstraZeneca and Exco InTouch have announced a program to develop and launch interactive mobile phone and internet-based health tools that will help patients in the UK and their healthcare providers to track and manage chronic conditions. AstraZeneca’s R&D organisation and Exco InTouch are developing the tool with an initial focus on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Read more »

President Obama’s State of the Union Address on Feb. 12, 2013 touched on some issues that may directly impact the pharmaceutical industry: healthcare reform, innovation, and job creation. So how has the pharmaceutical industry responded?

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Developing and maintaining the right labor pool is an ongoing challenge for any industry, and it is one that the pharmaceutical industry also is facing. Recent attention in the pharmaceutical industry has focused on the restructuring that has occurred and that is still occurring among the large pharmaceutical companies. And while re-allocating resources, including labor resources, is always a crucial task for companies, it is a challenge made even more difficult amidst shifting industry fundamentals and a demand for higher productivity from scientific talent.

The pharmaceutical industry requires employees with a high-end scientific skill set, and PwC’s 2012 Global CEO Survey indicates that pharmaceutical companies are having a hard time finding the right people. A recent report by PwC’s Health Research Institute (HRI) takes a look at how changes in R&D models have affected the pharmaceutical workforce.

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Biopharmaceutical companies are touting their huge investment in R&D, which has filled the drug pipeline with more potential first-in-class medicines, including orphan drugs, personalized medicines and new therapies based on novel scientific strategies. A report by the Analysis Group for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) documents more than 5,000 new medicines in the pipeline globally, many for untreated diseases and life-threatening conditions. The promise is that this more robust pipeline will lead to more new critical therapies for patients. Read more »

Recent years of low approvals of new blockbuster products have given rise to the perception that pharmaceutical drug development, in its current format, no longer works. Recent late-stage failures of clinical trials have also served to emphasise the risky nature of drug development. So what’s the alternative?

At the end of last week, GlaxoSmithKline placed its bets on open innovation as a new way forward for developing medicines. Read more »

Yesterday, Sanofi issued a press statement titled “Sanofi provides information on the adaption of its activities in France through 2015.” Read past the headline and you quickly realise that the ‘adaption of activities’ involves eliminating around 900 jobs at the company’s sites France by 2015. You can read the statement here.

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Amid one of the most divisive eras in our nation’s political history, one thing we can all pretty much agree on is the fact that our stalled economic engine needs a jumpstart. Read more »

Rumors of change at AstraZeneca have been rumbling through newspapers all week and yesterday the company finally revealed the details by releasing a statement about its  restructuring initiatives “to drive productivity and support innovation”. It all sounds very high and important but basically it boils down to job cuts. And lots of them. Read more »

Just over a week ago, I decided to hop on the early train to Glasgow, Scotland, so that I might catch at least half of the 8th bioProcess UK conference, focusing on advancing next generation therapies. The meeting was held in the very fitting Glasgow Science Center and, given the strikes over public sector pensions that day, there were plenty of youngsters mingling with the crowds—the next generation of bioprocess engineers perhaps? Amazingly, presentations were delivered in the IMAX theatre—I have never seen PowerPoint slides on such a scale before—but given the eminence of some of the keynote speakers involved, it too was quite apt. Read more »

The coming patent cliff and the nation’s continuing economic problems have tightened many drugmakers’ R&D budgets. Cancer research has remained a priority, however, as GE Healthcare’s recent $1-billion investment in oncology demonstrates. Two recent studies show the importance of this research by offering glimmers of hope. Read more »