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..Indian TB drugmaker has been hit with a WHO (World health Organization) Notice of Concern but an independent audit carried out by its customer Svizera Europe disputes the GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) violations raised…The facility is run by Svizera Labs Private Limited…and manufactures a number of anti-tuberculosis drugs… firm failed to provide adequate controls to stop the contamination of products,..observing uneven floor, crumbling walls, and black mould inside a drain which also held stagnant water… Quality manager at…Svizera Europe is disputing the WHO’s findings.

Salesforce is taking its biggest stab yet at conquering healthcare. The $5 billion cloud computing behemoth…unveiled Salesforce Health Cloud. Salesforce, best known for its customer relationship management platform, considers Health Cloud a patient relationship management product…moon-shot goal is to leapfrog electronic medical records as the central patient record. It promises to cull data from as many sources as possible, safely manage that information, let patients easily access these records and display the information in a dashboard to help healthcare providers and payers better manage – and in some cases, predict – care.

For businesses to compete and grow…employers need to invest in their staff with training and development, and the pharmacy industry is no different…Savvy employers understand the importance of incorporating staff training and development in line with strategic business planning. Through planned and supported development programs, employees gain immense personal satisfaction and in turn, make a positive and lasting contribution to the business’ bottom line…Check out my top reasons to include staff training and development programs in your business:

• Increased employee satisfaction
• Improved performance
• Increased sales
• Staff retention and morale

..survey of the Chinese pharmaceutical market based on an opinion poll conducted with domestic and foreign suppliers attending CPhI’s annual China expo in Shanghai…Despite some structural concerns in the context of slowing macro-economic growth overall, the report offers a very positive outlook…China is the world’s largest producer of active pharmaceutical ingredients. Its massive pharmaceutical market is projected to be worth $158 billion worldwide in 2016, while domestic sales alone will account for $63 billion…China sales will double over the next five years.

Pfizer's stop-smoking drug Chantix (varenicline) does not raise risks of heart attack or depression, contrary to previous reports, and should be recommended to more smokers wanting to quit, scientists said…researchers found that patients who took Chantix,..marketed as Champix in Europe, were no more likely to suffer a heart attack than those using nicotine replacement therapy or another quit-smoking drug…also not at higher risk of depression or self-harm...

Medical Journal of Australia today confirms the potential for community pharmacies to make a significant contribution to reducing the cost of unnecessary hospitalisations…study conducted by researchers at the University of South Australia and the BUPA Health Foundation shows that as many as one in four older hospital patients could have avoided admission had their medication and health risks been better managed…. a quarter of hospital admissions were preceded by ‘sub-optimal care’, with up to $300 million being spent per year to treat elderly patients who were not on the correct drug regime.

…I appreciate your prediction of the approval for the DMD drugs but I think you're too optimistic about Sarepta Therapeutics. I believe FDA approves Biomarin but tells Sarepta that another trial must be run…why Biomarin over Sarepta? Because what Biomarin is seeking to do -- make a convincing argument for drisapersen's approval based on messy clinical data…It's something that the FDA has done before with drugs for rare diseases… Sarepta's eteplirsen, by contrast, requires the FDA to set a regulatory precedent which the agency might regret later.

..when it comes to HIPAA compliance…the day of reckoning is coming for more covered entities..and now for business associates…OCR (Office for Civil Rights) is inching closer to conducting more HIPAA audits..including audits of business associates…next round of HIPAA audits brewing, and covered entities started receiving questionnaires…seeking...to identify business associates…The relentless move of health data to the cloud, and the exponential growth of an ecosystem of business associates providing a vast array of services to covered entities mean that the potential exposure of protected health information to breaches.. is enormous.

Pharmacy Board of Australia (the Board) has released revised guidelines that provide guidance to the profession on a range of issues.

Pharmacists are urged to read the revised guidelines published today:

• Guidelines for dispensing of medicines
• Guidelines on practice-specific issues,
• Guideline 1 Reference texts for pharmacists
• Guidelines on dose administration aids and staged supply of dispensed medicines, and
• Guidelines for proprietor pharmacists.

India's Cipla made its name in the west as a leader in challenging Big Pharma patents on expensive drugs in an effort to cut their prices in a country with a large need and little money. Cipla said it will pay $550 million for InvaGen Pharmaceuticals, a Hauppauge, NY-based generics maker with 32 products in the market and 30 in the pipeline, as well as Exelan Pharmaceuticals, a Lawrenceville, GA, operation that markets and sells InvaGen's products into the government and institutional markets.