• GSK chief: Drug prices should be lower
    http://www.pharmatimes.com/Article/13-03-18/GSK_chief_Drug_prices_should_be_lower.aspx

    Drug prices should be lower and the high cost of research is a myth – these are the frank words of GlaxoSmithKline’s boss Sir Andrew Witty.

    Speaking to a conference in London last week and reported by Reuters, Sir Andrew said the $1 billion price tag of R&D, often touted by pharma firms and the ABPI, was “one of the great myths of the industry”.

    This is because it was an “average figure” that includes money spent on treatments that fail in later stages, costing firms hundreds of millions of dollars.

    “It’s not unrealistic to expect that new innovations ought to be priced at or below, in some cases, the prices that have pre-existed them,” he went on. “We haven’t seen that in recent eras of the (pharma) industry, but it is completely normal in other industries.”

    Looking at his own UK-based firm, Sir Andrew said he has managed to increase the rate of return on R&D investment as because fewer drugs have failed in Phase III development.

    “If you stop failing so often you massively reduce the cost of drug development,” he said, adding: “It’s why we are beginning to be able to price lower.”

    #recherche #pharma #santé #cdp

  • Iraq war costs U.S. more than $2 trillion: study | Reuters
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/14/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314

    (Reuters) - The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, a study released on Thursday said.

    The war has killed at least 134,000 Iraqi civilians and may have contributed to the deaths of as many as four times that number, according to the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University.

    When security forces, insurgents, journalists and humanitarian workers were included, the war’s death toll rose to an estimated 176,000 to 189,000, the study said.

    The report, the work of about 30 academics and experts, was published in advance of the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003.

    It was also an update of a 2011 report the Watson Institute produced ahead of the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks that assessed the cost in dollars and lives from the resulting wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

    The 2011 study said the combined cost of the wars was at least $3.7 trillion, based on actual expenditures from the U.S. Treasury and future commitments, such as the medical and disability claims of U.S. war veterans.

    That estimate climbed to nearly $4 trillion in the update.

    The estimated death toll from the three wars, previously at 224,000 to 258,000, increased to a range of 272,000 to 329,000 two years later.

    Excluded were indirect deaths caused by the mass exodus of doctors and a devastated infrastructure, for example, while the costs left out trillions of dollars in interest the United States could pay over the next 40 years.

    The interest on expenses for the Iraq war could amount to about $4 trillion during that period, the report said.

    The report also examined the burden on U.S. veterans and their families, showing a deep social cost as well as an increase in spending on veterans. The 2011 study found U.S. medical and disability claims for veterans after a decade of war totaled $33 billion. Two years later, that number had risen to $134.7 billion.

    FEW GAINS

    The report concluded the United States gained little from the war while Iraq was traumatized by it. The war reinvigorated radical Islamist militants in the region, set back women’s rights, and weakened an already precarious healthcare system, the report said. Meanwhile, the $212 billion reconstruction effort was largely a failure with most of that money spent on security or lost to waste and fraud, it said.

  • Damascenes panicked by call for men to fight Assad’s war | Reuters
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/14/us-syria-crisis-military-idUSBRE92D0K920130314

    When a government-linked Islamic body in Syria said this week it was a “sacred duty” to join the army and fight the revolt, Damascus was ablaze with rumors of a mass military draft.

    Men of military age panicked, worrying they would be given a gun and told to fight never-ending street battles with rebel fighters before being returned to their families in a wooden box, like thousands of soldiers over the past two years.

    President Bashar al-Assad’s forces are stretched thin across the country as the opposition takes further ground, overrunning military bases and executing prisoners. Fleeing reservists say morale is low among troops, who are virtually imprisoned in their barracks by officers who fear they’ll defect or flee.

    The speed in which the draft frenzy spread shows Syrians are feeling pressure to take up arms in a conflict that has become a war of attrition in which Assad is demanding Syrians step up and sacrifice for his survival.