Sunday, July 20, 2008

Why Big Pharma employees "go along to get along" contd.


Just say no

LOL

Saturday, July 19, 2008

I say Watson! The game's afoot.


Friday, July 18, 2008

Vote vote vote

A measure seeking to commemorate President Bush's years in office by slapping his name on a San Francisco sewage plant has qualified for the November ballot.

The measure certified Thursday would rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.

Local Republicans say the plan(t) stinks and they will oppose it.

Hat tip: PM

What The F**K is Social Media?

I'm not saying this is what happened to Pharma Giles

............. but if anyone wants to pay me $500,000 I'd stop blogging in a New York minute!

Cervix Wars contd.

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has published an economic evaluation that aimed to assess the cost effectiveness of routine vaccination of 12 year old schoolgirls against human papillomavirus (HPV) infection.

The Department of Health recently announced that the national programme contract had been awarded to Cervarix® with details of the price remaining confidential. This evaluation estimates that Cervarix® should be costing between £13 and £21 per dose less that the quadrivalent alternative Gardasil®.

There is continued debate over the choice of vaccine (Times and Guardian) accusing the government of selecting an inferior vaccine in order to save money. This article in the BMJ is likely to further inflame the debate and may generate patient questions in primary care.

Hat tip: Matt

All aboard the bandwagon


Hat tip: Benedict

Go Buddy Go

.
Buddy Guy's new album - Skin Deep.

A winner!

Another one just for Pfizer's Mary McLeod


US Lags Behind 18 Other Industrialized Nations in Health Care Quality


The United States fails on most measures of health care quality, with Americans waiting longer to see doctors and more likely to die of preventable or treatable illnesses than people in other industrialized countries, a report released on Thursday said.

Americans squander money on wasteful administrative costs, illnesses caused by medical error and inefficient use of time, the report from the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund concluded.

"We lead the world in spending. We should be expecting much more in return," Commonwealth Fund senior vice president Cathy Schoen told reporters.

More


The Scorecard

Just for Pfizer's Mary McLeod


Thursday, July 17, 2008

AstraZeneca - Introducing AZethics.com




AZ ethics: Not an oxymoron!

AstraZeneca is training staff in a new Code of Conduct that aims to ensure employees at all levels and locations act appropriately. The Code covers a number issues, including interactions with healthcare professionals, conflicts of interest and the ethics of R&D. It goes further than the recently revised EFPIA or PhRMA rules and explicitly spells out dos and don'ts on additional issues, such as political donations and insider trading.

The AZ Code also stipulates that:

* Staff must not enter into business relationships or offer or provide gifts, hospitality or anything else of value, to induce or reward favourable decisions about products and services

* Directors, officers, employees, and others who act on AZ's behalf, must not offer, pay or accept bribes

* Staff are forbidden from entering into situations in which personal or family interests may conflict with those of the company

More

Sodium

LOL

http://www.youtube.com/user/periodicvideos

Vote vote vote

Send a JibJab Sendables® eCard Today!

Are Teva raising the Barr?

Teva is in talks to buy Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. for as much as $7.5 billion, Israeli press reports say.

Peter Gabriel - Down to Earth

Great.

Glaxo Consumer Health - the dark side of Moon

GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare this week began a series of employee layoffs as part of a restructuring that also includes moving its weight control and smoking cessation groups from Moon, Pennsylvania to Parsippany, N.J.

Nine directors were let go and an undetermined number of its 500 plus employees are expected to be "terminated" by the end of the summer.

More

Add these to the 650 job cuts in Crawley, UK and it looks like the new CEO is making his mark!

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Warning - this is distressing!

And this is where Big Pharma is moving its research to.

The real war on drugs

On average, for the same drug, an American pays twice that paid in the UK.

America has declared war on drugs, an industry that is bleeding the nation dry.

The drug kingpins are running scared and, for the first time, the political mood on both Right and Left is in favour of taking action.

The presidential contenders Barack Obama and John McCain have drugs at the top of the agenda and the stock prices of the drug merchants are crumbling. AstraZeneca has lost a third of its value since October 2006, while GSK has shrunk by a quarter. Over the same period, Pfizer has tumbled by 38percent and since December Merck has shrunk by 40percent.

More at The Times