Industry News
Big
Pharma self-medicates in a bid to lift ailing returns - July 27, 2008
Big pharmaceutical companies are looking for new sources of profit. Many
blockbuster medicines are coming off patent and prices for prescription drugs
are falling as governments and health insurers demand bigger discounts. In the US, the public has turned against the drug firms, which for years
could push through huge price increases thanks to their marketing clout and
influence on Capitol Hill.
Should
Doctors be Selling Drugs for the Pharmaceutical Industry? - June 20, 2008
Are senior doctors who help drug companies sell their drugs independent experts
or just drug representatives in disguise, asks Ray Moynihan from the University
of Newcastle in Australia, in the British Medical Journal.
Drug Spending Moves Up for Diabetes, Down for Cholesterol - May
15, 2008
In health spending, how many people are being treated for a disease can be a lot
less important than how much it costs to treat each person. That’s what we took
from this report out today from Medco, the pharmacy benefits manager.
Use of diabetes drugs increased only 2.3% last year, but spending rose 12%. The
big driver was the introduction of new, expensive medicines that replace or are
added to older, cheaper ones.
Why isn't the richest
country in the world the healthiest? - July 3, 2007
Americans die younger and spend more years disabled than our counterparts in
Canada
and
Europe. Our infant mortality rate is higher,
too. And yet, even though the most common objections to nationalized health
care from its opponents in the U.S. are that it's too expensive, too restrictive and too inefficient, we spend way
more money on health care than they do. Why, if our health care is the best in
the world and we spend more money on it than anyone else and< the free
market is a marvel of efficiency, aren't our results the best in the world?