In 2014, the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research approved the most drugs since 1996. The FDA approved 41 novel medications last year, 62% more than the 27 approved in 2013. The only year that topped 2014 was 1996, when 53 new drugs were approved.
The new drug approvals consisted mostly of innovative, expensive treatments where competition is limited and costs of treatment can often exceed $100,000 per patient per year. Infectious ...
continue reading...An item on the blog Pharmalot examines an e-mail suggesting that drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb plans to get physicians to lobby state Medicaid programs on the company’s behalf.
According to Pharmalot, the e-mail was sent to the district business manager team with the goal of getting Medicaid programs in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland to place the Onglyza diabetes drug on the state formularies.
Although the blog doesn’t say that the company was doing anything illegal, it does point out that the region business ...
continue reading...An Irish newspaper, the Evening Herald, reports that diabetics in Europe have been warned about a drug used to lower blood sugar, which has been linked to severe side-effects.
According to the report, patients have suffered “serious hypersensitivity reactions” including anaphylactic shock and acute pancreatitis.
Both the Irish Medicines Board and the European Medicines Agency issued warnings about the drug saxagliptin, which has the brand name Onglyza, prescribed for patients with Type 2 diabetes as part of a diet and exercise program ...
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