Pharmaceutical companies and public health advocates worldwide are keeping an eye on a legal case in India, in which pharmaceutical giant Bayer is appealing a decision by the Indian patent controller to override the company’s monopoly on its cancer drug Nexavar.
If upheld, the decision will allow an Indian company to produce and sell the drug for the equivalent of $173 U.S. dollars a month, the Financial Times reports.
Bayer’s pricing would ...
continue reading...
Nonprofit organization Public Citizen reports that state settlements with drug companies over Medicaid fraud are at an all-time high.
The report says many states have recovered just as much, if not more, money from pharmaceutical companies accused of defrauding Medicaid programs as they spent on all Medicaid fraud enforcement. A total of $6.6 billion had been recovered from the beginning of 2012 through mid-July by both the federal government and states, ...
continue reading...
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends IUDs or hormonal implants as the best birth control for girls, according to the Miami Herald.
The Miami Herald notes that both types of contraception are more invasive and expensive than birth control pills, requiring a doctor to put them in place, which may explain why pills are still the most popular form of contraception in the U.S.
But birth control pills are sometimes ...
continue reading...A former Johnson & Johnson sales manager testified that the company promoted the illegal marketing of its antipsychotic drug Risperdal through tactics such as paying doctors to give favorable speeches and subsidizing golf trips, Bloomberg reports.
In 2003, company officials specifically urged salespeople to visit doctors who treat children, with the intention of getting more children on the drug – at a time when the drug wasn’t approved for children.
The former ...
continue reading...
The FDA has notified healthcare professionals about a potential increased risk of heart failure from the drug pramipexole, which is sold under the brand name Mirapex.
Mirapex is a prescription medicine used to treat Parkinson’s disease and restless legs syndrome.
According to the FDA warning, recent studies suggest a possible increased risk of heart failure from Mirapex, requiring further review of available data. But because of the study limitations, the FDA isn’t ...
continue reading...According to a story by Channel 6 Action News out of Philadelphia, there’s been an alarming increase in the number of relatively young people suffering strokes.
The story cites figures by the Center for Disease Control, which found the rate of people hospitalized for stroke between the ages of 15 and 44 has gone up 37 percent between 1995 and 2008.
The report includes an interview with a local woman, Kathy Doyle, ...
continue reading...
