Representatives of the 12 Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) member countries at a press conference in Atlanta, after a deal was reached.
EPA/Erik S. Lesser
Before the last round of negotiations, only a handful of issues remained in the way of concluding the TPP. A potential deal-breaker for Australia was intellectual property protections for biologics.
The future may not be as bleak as we thought.
Ocskay Mark
Ever wonder how much it costs to develop a new drug? The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development estimates US$2.6 billion. But how accurate is this figure?
Here’s what I remember. It was 14 years ago, and I was a junior doctor working in psychiatry. Some colleagues planned a dinner as an end-of-term celebration and, despite reasonable incomes, they decided…
Pfizer is like Woody Allen’s famous shark. It has to keep moving or it will die. And the drug company seems unable to keep moving by any means other than acquisitions. Its all-time best-selling drug, Lipitor…
Congratulations are in order. The pair have known each other for some time. But the relationship has now been formalised. Living as we do in modern times, both may have other relationships, but it’s still…
Ever since the time of the guillotine, doctors have been at the centre of the death penalty. Joseph Guillotin, the physician who suggested the device be used in 18th-century France, was actually against…
Big pharma: a world of many faces.
Greg Peverill-Conti
With billions to be made on the back of ill health and notable scandals and cover-ups in its history, it’s fair to say that many see the public face of the pharmaceutical industry as a mask for darker…
Drug companies vigorously seek to influence government policy.
Ian Wilson
GlaxoSmithKline, one of the Big Five global pharmaceutical companies, this week gave the world an overdue Christmas present. Glaxo will stop paying doctors to promote its drugs and will no longer pay its…
A large proportion of drug trial data never gets published, skewing our picture of drugs’ effectiveness and safety.
opensource.com
An article published in the journal of the British Medical Association, BMJ, earlier this week illustrates a devastating problem with the “evidence base” in the academic medical literature. A large proportion…
The scandal started with allegations that GlaxoSmithKline had made illegal payments to doctors and government officials.
Ian Wilson
China is in the midst of conducting a series of corruption investigations of pharmaceutical companies that have been operating in the country. It all started with the investigation of officials from pharmaceutical…
In 2001 I met David Graham, an official from the US Food and Drug Administration, in a car park in Washington. I wanted him to shed light on why the diabetes drug troglitazone, or Rezulin, had been available…
Roche has refused to share clinical trial data for Tamiflu, which is used to relieve symptoms and reduce complications of influenza.
AAP/Joe Castro
A study published today shows that clinical trials with industry sponsorship report greater benefits and fewer harmful side effects. In the discussion, the authors note that most reviews and guidelines…
Pathology service providers should be encouraged to adopt a code of conduct similar to that of Medicines Australia.
Waiting room image from shutterstock.com
You’ve probably given little thought to the slip of paper your GP hands you when she sends you off for a blood test. After all, you’re likely to have more important things to worry about. But the next…
Australia has almost no capacity to fill international medicine shortages.
artisrams
The earthquake in the Northern Italian town of Medolla this May devastated the local community, killing 17 people and leaving 14,000 homeless. Because Medolla is the manufacturing epicentre of the Italian…
Pharmaceutical companies undertake clinical trials to determine whether a potential new drug meets the requirements for market authorisation.
Chain of figures photo from www.shutterstock.com
New medicines must be approved as safe, efficacious and of good quality before they can be prescribed. But authors of two recent articles in the British Medical Journal argue that governments should introduce…
Australia has no public register of gift or other relationships between practitioners and drug companies.
Aidan Jones
If it involved the record industry we’d call it payola: undisclosed kickbacks to radio station executives, owners and disk jockeys to boost broadcasts and thus record sales. In the pharmaceutical industry…
Medical experts say more transparency is needed in financial dealings between big drug companies and doctors.
Flickr/e-MagineArt.com
Pharmaceutical companies will be required to disclose more details about their financial ties to doctors under a revised self-regulatory code, but they have resisted calls to name doctors individually…
Drug prices reduce dramatically when large multinationals’ monopoly is broken.
m.p.3./Flickr
Two large multinational pharmaceutical companies are fighting for patents and monopoly pricing in Indian courts. The outcomes of the cases – involving Novartis and Bayer – are likely to determine the country’s…
Professor of Bioethics & Medicine, Sydney Health Ethics, Haematologist/BMT Physician, Royal North Shore Hospital and Director, Praxis Australia, University of Sydney