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Hello, everyone, and welcome to another working week. The weekend respite flew by rather quickly, did it not? Well, that was to be expected. Now, the time has come to resume the usual routine of meetings and deadlines and what-not. So please join us as we fortify ourselves with a few cups of stimulation. A little edge can be a good thing, yes? Meanwhile, here are some tidbits to get you going. Have a smashing day and do stay in touch…
An agreement on the Trans Pacific Partnership trade pact is expected to be announced this morning and include a compromise on clinical trial data exclusivity on biologics, according to The Wall Street Journal [2]. Rather than the 12 years offered in the U.S., there will be two tracks in which some countries will have eight years and others five years plus another three under a regulatory compromise. You can watch the press conference here [3] at 9 a.m. ET.
A single, 5,000 percent price hike on an anti-parasitic drug from Turing Pharmaceuticals garnered national media attention, but this was actually just one of hundreds of smaller price increases drug companies make in the U.S. each year, Bloomberg News [4] informs us. The pharmaceutical industry uses the tactic to generate more revenue from older medications.
Meanwhile, the recent controversy over drug pricing sparked by Turing is prompting more people to sign petitions to place the California Drug Price Relief Act on the state ballot for a November 16 vote, The San Francisco Times [5] tells us. The statewide ballot initiative would require state programs to pay the same price for prescription medications that are negotiated by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
A guerrilla advertising campaign in Australia is encouraging gay men to have unprotected sex in order to promote PrEP, a drug that combats HIV infection, but has not been approved for use there, The Age [6] writes. Health experts have slammed the controversial ads for failing to promote safe sex and the importance of regular health screening, branding them “extremely unhelpful” and “completely wrong.”
Organizations involved in the anti-vaccine movement, such as SafeMinds, still hope to find some evidence that vaccines threaten children’s health. But a recent effort to fund research it hoped would prove vaccines cause autism in children appears to have backfired, Newsweek [7] reports, because the study showed a link between autism and vaccines does not exist.
The FDA Merck’s Keytruda for treating the most common form of lung cancer, the second of a costly new wave of immune-boosting drugs to be cleared for one of the deadliest cancer types, The Wall Street Journal [8] says.
AstraZeneca is using a multi-million-dollar tax avoidance scheme in the Netherlands, set up months after the UK relaxed its tax laws for multinationals in 2013, to avoid UK taxes, The Guardian [9] reports.
The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and India’s Central Drugs Standard Control Organization agreed to collaborate to promote each other’s safety frameworks, Pharma Times [10] tells us.
Pfizer plans to create 40 new jobs at a manufacturing site in Cork, Ireland, which makes active ingredients for the Lipitor cholesterol drug, InPharma Technologist [11] says.
Amicus Therapeutics lost more than half its market value Friday after the drug maker delayed plans to seek FDA approval of its treatment for a rare genetic disorder, The Wall Street Journal [12] writes.