- For a Rare Disease, Drug Trials Scramble for Patients (wsj.com)
Companies vie for enrollees amid questions that trials will siphon participants away from each other…After years of effort, scientists and families of young patients with the genetic condition Niemann-Pick Type C are in a position to which any rare-disease community aspires: the prospect of not one, not two, but three companies launching clinical trials to develop therapies…the flurry of commercial interest has sparked an urgent debate. Can the community support more than one trial at the same time?
- Sen. Brown introduces legislation to stop medication abuse (americanpharmacynews.com)
Sen. Brown … introduced…legislation, …Stopping Medication Abuse and Protecting Seniors Act, to address prescription drug abuse by cracking down on doctor shopping… creation of a Medicare lock-in program ..through better monitoring of prescription patterns on the part of doctors, pharmacies and patients...
- China’s much-hyped healthcare reform drive stuck in first gear (newsdaily.com)
Li Tiantian, a Chinese doctor turned tech entrepreneur, is a leading light of the country’s much-trumpeted healthcare reform drive. His medical networking platform DXY.com …has attracted funding from tech giants … reality is rather different… a lack of support by Beijing and obstacles working with China’s huge, fragmented public healthcare sector...
- International pharmaceutical groups involved in large corruption scandal in Romania (romania-insider.com)
National Anticorruption Directorate …investigation on deals between Romanian doctors and drug companies for cancer drug prescriptions might target 11 of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the local market…. anticorruption prosecutors….targeting... arrangements between doctors and pharma companies.
- Roche
- Actavis
- Pfizer
- Teva
- Novartis
- Alvogen
- Sandoz
- Glaxosmithkline
- Egis
- Romastru Trading
- Glenmark
- Pain Patients Say They Can’t Get Medicine After Crackdown On Illegal Rx Drug Trade (khn.org)
Florida was considered the epicenter for the trafficking of illegal prescription narcotics. The DEA and local law enforcement shut down more than 250 so-called “pill mills” — clinics where doctors could sell narcotics directly to people for cash. Now Florida doctors can no longer dispense narcotics directly to patients...
- Exclusive: GSK faces new corruption allegations, this time in Romania (newsdaily.com)Romania investigates suspected drug company bribes (newsdaily.com)
GlaxoSmithKline,..was fined a record $483 million for corruption in China last year and … new allegations of bribery… paid Romanian doctors hundreds, and in one cases thousands, of euros between 2009 and 2012 for prescribing its medicines,…U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission,... are investigating GSK for possible breaches of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.