industryterm:pharmaceutical

What Isn’t for Sale?-
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/04/what-isnt-for-sale/308902

THERE ARE SOME THINGS money can’t buy—but these days, not many. Almost everything is up for sale. For example:

• A prison-cell upgrade: $90 a night. In Santa Ana, California, and some other cities, nonviolent offenders can pay for a clean, quiet jail cell, without any non-paying prisoners to disturb them.

• Access to the carpool lane while driving solo: $8. Minneapolis, San Diego, Houston, Seattle, and other cities have sought to ease traffic congestion by letting solo drivers pay to drive in carpool lanes, at rates that vary according to traffic.

• The services of an Indian surrogate mother: $8,000. Western couples seeking surrogates increasingly outsource the job to India, and the price is less than one-third the going rate in the United States.

• The right to shoot an endangered black rhino: $250,000. South Africa has begun letting some ranchers sell hunters the right to kill a limited number of rhinos, to give the ranchers an incentive to raise and protect the endangered species.

• Your doctor’s cellphone number: $1,500 and up per year. A growing number of “concierge” doctors offer cellphone access and same-day appointments for patients willing to pay annual fees ranging from $1,500 to $25,000.

• The right to emit a metric ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere: $10.50. The European Union runs a carbon-dioxide-emissions market that enables companies to buy and sell the right to pollute.

• The right to immigrate to the United States: $500,000. Foreigners who invest $500,000 and create at least 10 full-time jobs in an area of high unemployment are eligible for a green card that entitles them to permanent residency.

NOT EVERYONE CAN AFFORD to buy these things. But today there are lots of new ways to make money. If you need to earn some extra cash, here are some novel possibilities:

• Sell space on your forehead to display commercial advertising: $10,000. A single mother in Utah who needed money for her son’s education was paid $10,000 by an online casino to install a permanent tattoo of the casino’s Web address on her forehead. Temporary tattoo ads earn less.

• Serve as a human guinea pig in a drug-safety trial for a pharmaceutical company: $7,500. The pay can be higher or lower, depending on the invasiveness of the procedure used to test the drug’s effect and the discomfort involved.

• Fight in Somalia or Afghanistan for a private military contractor: up to $1,000 a day. The pay varies according to qualifications, experience, and nationality.

• Stand in line overnight on Capitol Hill to hold a place for a lobbyist who wants to attend a congressional hearing: $15–$20 an hour. Lobbyists pay line-standing companies, who hire homeless people and others to queue up.

• If you are a second-grader in an underachieving Dallas school, read a book: $2. To encourage reading, schools pay kids for each book they read.

WE LIVE IN A TIME when almost everything can be bought and sold. Over the past three decades, markets—and market values—have come to govern our lives as never before. We did not arrive at this condition through any deliberate choice. It is almost as if it came upon us.

... Today, the logic of buying and selling no longer applies to material goods alone. It increasingly governs the whole of life.

EU debates biopiracy law to protect indigenous people | Global development | guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/may/01/eu-biopiracy-protect-indigenous-people

The European parliament is debating a draft biopiracy law requiring industry to compensate indigenous people if it makes commercial use of local knowledge such as plant-based medicines.

Under the law – based on the international convention on access to biodiversity, the Nagoya protocol – the pharmaceuticals industry would need the written consent of local or indigenous people before exploring their region’s genetic resources or making use of their traditional knowhow.

Relevant authorities would have the power to sanction companies that fail to comply, protecting local interests from the predatory attitude of big European companies.

#biopiraterie #pharma #peuples_autochtones

Cancer Physicians Attack High Drug Costs
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/business/cancer-physicians-attack-high-drug-costs.html

With the cost of some lifesaving cancer drugs exceeding $100,000 a year, more than 100 influential cancer specialists from around the world have taken the unusual step of banding together in hopes of persuading some leading pharmaceutical companies to bring prices down.

Some of the doctors who signed on to the commentary said they were inspired by physicians at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, who last fall refused to use a new colon cancer drug, Zaltrap, because it was twice as expensive as another drug without being better.

Many of the roughly 120 doctors who were co-authors of the commentary — about 30 of whom are from the United States, the — work closely with pharmaceutical companies on research and clinical trials. They say they favor a healthy pharmaceutical industry, but think prices are much higher than they need to be to ensure that.

“If you are making $3 billion a year on Gleevec, could you get by with $2 billion?” Dr. Druker, who is now director of the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health and Science University, said in an interview. “When do you cross the line from essential profits to profiteering?”

#pharma #brevets #soins

Désespérément banal : nommé responsable du département de la santé de l’État de Pennsylvanie aprés avoir été le responsable du lobbying de Pfizer. http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/phillypharma/Pfizer-spent-big-money-on-lobbying-when-new-PA-health-department-secretary-w

Affaire Novartis : l’Inde préserve les médicaments génériques
http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2013/04/01/affaire-novartis-l-inde-preserve-les-medicaments-generiques_3151530_3244.htm

C’est (...) une nouvelle étape vers un accès plus large des populations défavorisées aux médicaments génériques. En rejetant, lundi 1er avril, la demande de brevet déposée par le laboratoire pharmaceutique suisse Novartis sur le Glivec, un traitement contre la leucémie, la Cour suprême de New Delhi a confirmé et mis en application pour la première fois une clause de la loi indienne qui exclut de protéger par des brevets les médicaments qui n’apportent que des améliorations mineures à des molécules découvertes avant 1995. L’Inde devient ainsi le premier pays au monde à rejeter un brevet sur le Glivec, qui est en vigueur dans près de 40 pays dans le monde comme en Chine ou à Taiwan.

(...)

Ce jugement va faciliter la fabrication de génériques en Inde, où sont élaborés près de la moitié des médicaments contre le sida utilisés dans les pays en voie de développement. « Il va sauver des vies en offrant des traitements à bas coût aux patients qui en ont besoin », a déclaré Kiran Hukku, la responsable de l’association d’aide aux malades du cancer.

..

Selon Leena Menghaney, responsable en Inde de la « Campagne d’accès aux médicaments essentiels » de Médecins sans frontières (MSF), le Glivec est vendu 4 000 dollars (quelque 3 100 euros) par patient et par mois, alors que la version générique est disponible à moins de 73 dollars (...)

"(...) La décision de la Cour suprême indienne va-t-elle freiner les investissements dans la recherche ? « Les investissements vont plutôt se concentrer sur la création de nouvelles molécules, et pas sur leur amélioration, ce qui bénéficiera aux patients », répond Anand Grover * , l’avocat de l’association d’aide aux malades du cancer.

Enfin, pour un grand groupe pharmaceutique comme Novartis, l’Inde ne se résume pas qu’aux génériques. Le géant suisse effectue dans le pays de nombreux tests cliniques alors que la législation en la matière est quasiment inexistante, notamment l’obligation qui est faite aux médecins d’informer les patients des risques qu’ils encourent en testant de nouveaux traitements.

Si les associations d’aide aux patients ont remporté une première victoire dans la lutte pour l’accès aux médicaments génériques, la bataille n’est pas pour autant terminée. D’après Médecins sans frontières, l’accord de libre échange qui est en ce moment négocié entre l’Inde et l’Union européenne prévoit des clauses qui pourraient durcir la loi indienne sur la propriété intellectuelle.

(...)

Dans un marché indien occupé à 90 % par des médicaments génériques, les associations comme MSF entendent désormais livrer d’autres batailles pour diminuer le prix des traitements protégés par des brevets en Inde. Grâce à ses 8 000 laboratoires, l’Inde exporte la moitié de sa production vers les pays en développement.

Brevets : Novartis perd son bras de fer contre la justice indienne - http://www.lemonde.fr/asie-pacifique/article/2013/04/01/bras-de-fer-entre-novartis-et-la-justice-indienne_3151132_3216.html

LUTTE CONTRE L’EVERGREENING

... la technique dite d’evergreening consist[e] pour les groupes pharmaceutiques à déposer des brevets pour un produit faiblement modifié de façon à en conserver pour des décennies supplémentaires le droit exclusif d’exploitation.

Quant au New York Times : http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/business/global/top-court-in-india-rejects-novartis-drug-patent.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print

un coup de pagaie à droite...,

On the other hand, the ruling could cost lives in the future. Drug company executives and others argue that India’s failure to grant patents for critical medicines – and Gleevec is widely recognized as one of the most important medical discoveries in decades – is a shortsighted strategy that undermines a vital system for funding new discoveries.

... le suivant à gauche...,

Anand Grover * , a lawyer who argued the case on behalf of Cancer Patients Aid Association in India, said the ruling had a sweeping effect since it confirmed that India has a very high bar for approving patents on medicines.

“What is happening in the United States is that a lot of money is being wasted on new forms of old drugs,” Mr. Grover said. Because of Monday’s ruling, “that will not happen in India.”

Indeed , the vast majority of drug patents given in the United States are for tiny changes that often provide patients few meaningful benefits but allow drug companies to continue charging high prices for years beyond the original patent life.

In a classic example, AstraZeneca extended for years its franchise around the huge-selling heartburn pill, Prilosec, by performing a bit of chemical wizardry and renaming the medicine Nexium. Amgen has won so many patents on its hugely expensive erythropoietin-stimulating drugs that the company has maintained exclusive sales rights for 24 years, double the usual period.

One result is that the United States pays the highest drug prices in the world, prices that only a tiny fraction could afford in India, where more than two-thirds of the population lives on less than $2 a day. While advocates for the pharmaceutical industry argue that fairly liberal rules on patents spur innovation, academics are far from united in sharing that view.

...et le dernier à droite...,

But as the economies of emerging markets grow, their refusal to pay higher premiums for newer drugs could significantly reduce the money needed for innovation. The drug industry makes nearly two-thirds of its profits in the United States, a dependence that many in the industry fear is unsustainable. And even minor improvements in medicines – making a pill once-a-day instead of twice-a-day – can have significant impacts on patient wellness, industry executives say.

The United States government has become increasingly insistent in recent years that other countries adopt far more stringent patent protection rules, with the result that poorer patients often lose access to cheap generic copies of medicines when their governments undertake trade agreements with the United States.

Drug companies have relied on the American government to lobby on the issue because they have few tools to punish India and other countries. If the companies decide not to introduce high-priced drugs in India, the country could legalize generic copies under international law. And with major drug makers cutting back on research budgets anyway, large investments in research infrastructure may be unlikely even if countries adopt patent laws more amenable to the industry.

* Rien, par contre, sur son très convaincant raisonnement cité par Le Monde.

Blocking Medicine to Iran - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/02/opinion/blocking-medicine-to-iran.html

Over the past three months, I led a group of independent business consultants with expertise in Iran to evaluate the problem. After conducting extensive interviews in Tehran and Dubai with Iranian importers and manufacturers of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment and their Western counterparts, we concluded that even though in theory the sanctions regime imposed on Iran by the United States and the European Union is supposed to allow humanitarian trade, in reality it impairs the delivery of drugs and medical equipment to Iran.

Although the Iranian government deserves firm criticism for incompetence in handling the crisis, poor allocation of scarce foreign currency resources and failing to crack down on corrupt practices, the main culprit are the U.S. and European sanctions that regulate financial transactions with Iran.

The system is irrational: There is a blanket waiver to the sanctions to facilitate humanitarian trade, but other laws restricting financial transactions with Iran make it impossible to implement that exception. So the trade of medical supplies is legal in theory and virtually impossible in practice because Iran cannot pay for the Western medicine it needs.

Pharma gift bans for budding doctors have long-term impact http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2013/02/18/prsb0218.htm

The gift restrictions adopted in medical schools and residency programs are linked to less prescribing of brand-name drugs, said two recently published studies that appear to be the first attempts to gauge the clinical practice impact of efforts within medicine to rein in pharma’s influence.

Aid for vaccines is subsidising Big Pharma, doctors claim | Sarah Boseley | Global development | guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/feb/04/aid-vaccines-subsidising-big-pharma-doctors-claim

Large sums of public money intended to ensure children in the developing world are immunised against disease are effectively being used to subsidise Big Pharma, doctors working in the field claim.

Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), the Nobel prize-winning organisation working on the frontline in remote and conflict areas, says vaccines bought with UK and other donor governments’ money cost too much and are not designed for the needs of hot and impoverished countries. When the pot of money subsidising the high prices of western pharmaceutical companies runs out, developing world governments will not be able to afford the vaccines and children will continue to lose their lives, MSF says.

MSF is concerned that the deals between the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi), to which the UK was the biggest donor last year, and pharmaceutical companies such as the British giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Pfizer in the US, are not transparent and do not have inbuilt sustainability.

“It looks to us like a big subsidy for pharma – there is no other way of saying it really,” said Dr Manica Balasegaram, executive director of MSF’s access campaign.

#santé #pharma #pauvreté #aide #vaccin

FDA Grants Priority Review to J&J’s Bedaquiline Tuberculosis Treatment - WSJ.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20121231-703447.html

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Johnson & Johnson’s (JNJ) drug to treat a form of resistant tuberculosis that is uncommon in the U.S. but growing globally.

The drug, Sirturo, will treat patients with multidrug resistant tuberculosis, or MDR-TB, a possibly fatal disease that affects as many as 630,000 people world-wide who can’t be cured with existing therapies alone. Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection that mostly involves the lungs.

Sirturo, also known as bedaquiline, is not expected to be a large moneymaker for Johnson & Johnson, one of the world’s largest health-care conglomerate, because the disease is prevalent in poorer countries unable to afford high prices for the treatment. Providing the drug, though, could help the company create goodwill among regulators, governments and patients around the world.

“The commercial opportunity is very limited,” said Pamela Van Houten, a J&J spokesperson. “This is part of our commitment to advance innovative medicines that help address serious public health issues.”

#tuberculose #mdrtb #brevets #pharma #santé

et dans Nature :
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2013/01/at-long-last-a-new-weapon-against-tuberculosis.html

Drug-pollution law all washed up : Nature
http://www.nature.com/news/drug-pollution-law-all-washed-up-1.11854

la #pilule contraceptive pose des problèmes aux poissons ; l’Europe veut faire un truc

Europe is set to quash a precedent-setting initiative designed to tackle a disturbing side effect of common drugs — their impact on aquatic life. Nature has learned that landmark regulations intended to clean Europe’s waterways of pharmaceuticals are likely to be dead on arrival when they reach a key vote in the European Parliament next week.

http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/7.7539.1353425371!/image/Wastewater_fish_effects.jpg_gen/derivatives/fullsize/Wastewater_fish_effects.jpg

#chimie #médicaments #santé #environnement

Without consent: how drugs companies exploit Indian ’guinea pigs’
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/without-consent-how-drugs-companies-exploit-indian-guinea-pigs-626191

http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article6262008.ece/BINARY/original/Pg-2-victims.jpg

Western pharmaceutical companies have seized on India over the past five years as a testing ground for drugs – making the most of a huge population and loose regulations which help dramatically cut research costs for lucrative products to be sold in the West. The relationship is so exploitative that some believe it represents a new colonialism.

Since restrictions on drug trials were relaxed in 2005, the industry in India has swollen to the point where today more than 150,000 people are involved in at least 1,600 clinical trials, conducted on behalf of British, American and European firms including AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Merck. There may be more.

#Pharma comes together over clinical trials : Nature
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/09/pharma-comes-together-over-clinical-trials.html

companies announced the launch of TransCelerate BioPharma, a nonprofit organization to be located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its mission will be to overcome the inefficiencies in clinical trials that contribute to the 10- to 15-year-long, $1.2 billion journey that a drug makes from discovery to market.

http://blogs.nature.com/news/files/2012/09/graph3.jpg

Children Treated as Lab Rats

http://www.globalpolicy.org/social-and-economic-policy/poverty-and-development/health-poverty-and-development/51840-children-treated-as-lab-rats.html?itemid=id#977

General Analysis on Social and Economic Policy

By K. S. Harikrishnan
IPS
Aug 14, 2012

India’s lax drug regulation laws have attracted global pharmaceutical companies to conduct unethical human drug trials in India. Collaboration between local Indian hospitals, foreign pharmaceutical companies and academic research institutions ensure fast and low cost introduction of a new drug from the lab to market. While the health ministry has tried to obligate financial compensation for trial-related death and injury, stiff opposition from research organizations has undermined the ministry’s effort to legislate the practice. As many doctors prioritize the extra income from the test rather than the ethical treatment of their patients, illiterate and poor people have become victims of unethical clinical trials.

Four-year-old Deepak Yadav, a mentally disabled boy from Indore city in the Indian state Madhya Pradesh, was being treated for stomach problems at Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya, a government hospital for children attached to the M. G. M. Medical College.

But when repeated administration of the anti-ulcer drug Rabeprazole started to exacerbate his condition, his parents stopped treatment and sought help from the Clinical Trial Victims Association (CTVA), which discovered that the boy had been a lab rat for an untested drug.

“We should have been told an unknown drug was being tested on our innocent child and given the choice to say no,” Deepak’s father Sooraj told IPS.

#inde #santé #essais-thérapeutiques #laboratoires #médicaments #enfance #développement #asie

Santé Recherche pharmaceutique

Pharmaceutical research and development: what do we get for all that money? | BMJ

cc @fil @recifs
http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e4348

Published 7 August 2012

Data indicate that the widely touted “innovation crisis” in pharmaceuticals is a myth. The real innovation crisis, say Donald Light and Joel Lexchin, stems from current incentives that reward companies for developing large numbers of new drugs with few clinical advantages over existing ones

Since the early 2000s, industry leaders, observers, and policy makers have been declaring that there is an innovation crisis in pharmaceutical research. A 2002 front page investigation by the Wall Street Journal reported, “In laboratories around the world, scientists on the hunt for new drugs are coming up dry . . . The $400 billion a year drug industry is suddenly in serious trouble.”1 Four years later, a US Government Accounting Office assessment of new drug development reported that “over the past several years it has become widely recognized throughout the industry that the productivity of its research and development expenditures has been declining.”2 In 2010, Morgan Stanley reported that top executives felt they could not “beat the innovation crisis” and proposed that the best way to deal with “a decade of dismal R&D returns” was for the major companies to stop trying to discover new drugs and buy into discoveries by others.3 Such reports continue and raise the spectre that the pipeline for new drugs will soon run dry and we will be left to the mercies of whatever ills befall us.4

Pharmaceutical Companies Putting Health of World’s Poor at Risk

http://www.globalpolicy.org/social-and-economic-policy/poverty-and-development/health-poverty-and-development/51795-pharmaceutical-companies-putting-health-of-worlds-poor-at-risk.h

cc @fil

By Simon Reid-Henry and Hans Lofgren
Guardian
July 26, 2012

India, a major exporter of generic medicine to the developing world, is facing attacks from pharmaceutical firms backed by the European Union (EU) and the US. In the free trade agreement (FTA) proposal, the EU is calling for intellectual property rights enforcement that could be detrimental for generic drug manufacturers in India. US government has backed the German pharmaceutical company Bayer to revoke the compulsory license for an Indian firm, Natco Pharma to produce cheaper version of its anti-cancer drug. Western politicians are acting to secure the profitability of their own industries as a way out of domestic crisis, while the poor people around the world are losing access to life saving medicines.

India makes cheap medicines for poor people around the world. The EU, pharmaceutical firms and now the US are pressuring the ’pharmacy of the developing world’ to change tack

India is often called the pharmacy of the developing world, which is no great surprise as more than 50% of its $10bn annual generic medicine production is exported.

But the domestic drug industry behind India’s role as global pharmacist stands to emerge rather poorly from the free trade agreement (FTA) that Europe is proposing for India. In late-stage negotiations over the terms of the long-awaited agreement, the EU is calling for intellectual property rights enforcement that goes well beyond India’s obligations as a member of the World Trade Organisation and would make it all but impossible for generic drug manufacturers in the country to continue in their present structure.

Thalidomide : the 50-year global cover-up
http://www.theage.com.au/national/the-50year-global-coverup-20120725-22r5c.html

The Age has obtained excerpts of never-before-published files from the archives of pharmaceutical giant Grunenthal which detail explicit warnings the company received about its drug’s potential to harm foetuses well before it was withdrawn from sale in late 1961.

#santé #histoire #cdp

Dr. Drew Pinsky’s relationship with drugmaker raises ethical questions
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/dr-drew-pinskys-relationships-with-drug-makers-raise-ethics-questions/2012/07/06/gJQA8tHjSW_story.html?hpid=z4

Buried in a gargantuan Justice Department settlement announced this week with the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline are details of a sweet deal Pinsky cut to promote the depression drug Wellbutrin, also known by the name Bupropion.

#pharma #conflits_d_intérêt

Household chemicals possibly causing cancers, fertility problems
http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=144348

The significant growth in many human diseases and disorders in recent decades, including breast and prostate cancer, male infertility and diabetes is connected to the rising levels of exposure to mixtures of some chemicals in widespread use, according to a review of recent literature commissioned by the European Environment Agency (EEA).

Chemicals which disrupt the hormone system – also known as ‘endocrine disrupting chemicals’ (EDCs) – can be found in food, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, household products and cosmetics.

#chimie #cancer #santé

NIH centre aims to match scientists with discarded drugs : Nature News Blog
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/05/nih-centre-aims-to-match-scientists-with-discarded-drugs.html

A cache of at least 24 drugs abandoned during development by three major pharmaceutical companies will become available to scientists seeking novel therapeutic uses for them under a new, competitive awards programme, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and executives from the drug companies announced today.

#recherche #pharma #santé #médicaments #pfizer

Pfizer Profit Declines 19% After Loss of Lipitor Patent - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/business/pfizer-profit-declines-19-after-loss-of-lipitor-patent.html

At the same time, the company is slashing as much as 30 percent of its research budget as part of a plan to focus on only the most promising areas, like cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

Non seulement depuis 20 ans ils n’ont pas trouvé de vrais nouveaux médicaments, mais pour améliorer leur position économique ils diminuent la recherche... le contraire du discours habituel sur l’importance des Big Pharma pour la santé dans le monde. Quand le profit parle, la vérité sort toute crue... mais personne n’écoute.

Lebanon may be blacklisted for not enforcing pharmaceutical patents
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Business/Lebanon/2012/Apr-03/168963-lebanon-may-be-blacklisted-for-not-enforcing-pharmaceutical-pat

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) has asked the United States Trade Representative to include Lebanon on the 2012 Priority Watch List due to the lack of adequate intellectual property protection in the Lebanese pharmaceutical market.

Lebanon is one of 17 countries, in addition to the European Union, that PhRMA – an organization grouping the largest U.S. pharmaceutical companies – recommended for the Priority Watch List, according to Lebanon This Week, the economic publication of the Byblos Bank Group. The list includes Algeria and Israel from the region.

PhRMA identified ineffective regulatory data protection, regulatory barriers and parallel imports as the three key issues of concern in the Lebanese pharmaceutical market.

India Affirms Role as Developing World’s Pharmacy - IPS
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=107126

NEW DELHI, Mar. 19, 2012 (IPS) - By allowing a generic manufacturer to produce a patented cancer drug at a fraction of its current cost, India has declared that it is not about to abandon its role as the ‘pharmacy of the world’s poor’.

In a path-breaking move on Mar. 9, India’s patent office invoked compulsory licensing (CL) provisions under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules to allow generic drug manufacturer Natco Pharma to produce and sell ‘Nexavar’ in India, a drug developed by the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer to treat liver and kidney cancer.

#brevets #cancer #inde #omc #trips

International groups move to criminalize fake drugs : Nature News & Comment
http://www.nature.com/news/international-groups-move-to-criminalize-fake-drugs-1.10159

un mélange malsain entre problématiques différentes : les faux médicaments sont-ils les contrefaçons (mutilant les profits des compagnies pharmaceutiques) ou les chimiquement faux (placebo ou toxiques) qui mettent en péril la santé de leurs usagers ?

The medical community insists that counterfeit medicines should not be placed in the same penal class as other imitation goods. “The main people affected are patients and their families, not pharmaceutical companies and their traders,” says Newton. “Fake antimalarials cause more harm than fake Rolexes. They should be treated differently.”

#pharma #médicaments #brevets #toxiques

Is Pfizer Liable for Pregnancies Caused by Faulty Birth Control ? - Brad Jacobson - Health - The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/02/is-pfizer-liable-for-pregnancies-caused-by-faulty-birth-control/252997/

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer recently announced it’s recalling one million packets of birth control medication because it mixed up the order of the hormone-containing pills with #placebos during packaging, putting an unknown number of #women at risk for unintended pregnancies. While news of this error spread quickly, the question of Pfizer’s liability in this incident and how it delayed to notify the public has received scant attention.

Longue analyse juridique pour savoir si la société Pfizer peut être tenue pour responsable des grossesses survenues suite à cette erreur de packaging : un placebo à la place de la #pilule contraceptive.

#contraception #pharma

Ex-head of Europe’s drug regulator set up consultancy while still in office
http://www.corporateeurope.org/pressreleases/2011/ex-head-europe-drug-regulator-set-consultancy-while-still-office

Brussels, published 19 December 2011, updated 27 January 2012 – New evidence shows that the former head of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), Thomas Lönngren, set up his own consultancy business to advise pharmaceutical industry clients while he was still employed as the head of EMA. EMA is the agency responsible for the evaluation of medicines used throughout Europe. [This paragraph has been clarified following information provided by Dr Lönngren].

#conflits_d_intérêt #pharma