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As part of a new "strategic roadmap" unveiled recently, Sanofi plans to announce layoffs that are being described as "sizable" and that will affect a broad swath of company operations in various locations. Some cuts are expected to be...in France, where the drug maker is headquartered, although extracting concessions from French labor unions is notoriously difficult. As a result, a disproportionate number of job losses may occur in the United States. A layoff notice, in any event, is expected to be filed shortly with state officials in New Jersey, where Sanofi maintains a large corporate campus...The drug maker...employs about 110,000 people worldwide, including roughly 17,000 people in the US...Sanofi encountered price discounting in the long-acting insulin market...This was thanks to its Lantus product, which generated about 18 percent of sales in the first half of last year, but faces pressure from payers seeking discounts...a follow-on product is not showing signs of generating needed replacement revenue and a biosimilar version of Lantus will become available at the end of this year. And a deal to sell the MannKind inhaled insulin product known as Afrezza was just ended due to terrible sales.

On May 19, 1983, Boots aired the first broadcast television commercial in the United States for a prescription drug, the pain reliever Rufen...Within 48 hours of the ad’s airing, the federal government told the company to take it down. And more than 30 years later, the fight over marketing prescription drugs directly to the public is still raging...Now, the American Medical Association, the largest doctors group in the United States, wants to stop direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs in the belief that the ads encourage patients to seek medicines unnecessarily. But the effort to have drug ads banned alongside tobacco ads will face plenty of obstacles, none bigger than the First Amendment. Perhaps the most unusual thing about this decades-long saga is that it’s an issue at all...The United States is one of only two countries in the world to allow these ads. How did this little-noted example of American exceptionalism come to be?...It started with Boots.

A massive trade pact between 12 Pacific rim countries could limit the availability of affordable medicines, the head of the World Health Organization said…joining a heated debate on the impact of the deal…Margaret Chan told a conference there were “some very serious concerns” about the Trans-Pacific Partnership…trade policy which still needs to be ratified by member governments…“If these agreements open trade yet close the door to affordable medicines we have to ask the question: is this really progress at all,” Chan asked a conference in Geneva…The deal’s backers, including the United States, Canada, Japan and Australia, say it will cut trade barriers and set common standards across 40 percent of the world’s economy…But other bodies, including leaders of India’s $15 billion pharmaceuticals industry, have said it could end up protecting the patents of powerful drugs companies inside the deal area, at the expense of makers of cheaper generic drugs outside.

US pharmacists moving abroad, beware. You may have to take a pay cut, considering that pharmacists in the United States tend to receive higher salaries than their counterparts in other countries...See how the United States ranks against some other high-paying countries for pharmacists below: (average salary)

• United States - $107,000 to $118,000
• Switzerland - $83,600
• Canada - $80,700
• United Kingdom - $57,000 to $53,300
• Germany - $44,800

What’s in a name?...Plenty, especially if you happen to run a company called Merck. In fact, there are two drug makers with that moniker. One is based in the United States and the other is headquartered in Germany, but is formally known as Merck KGgA (Merck Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien). And not surprisingly, they are warring over use of the name — again...To be specific, the company in Germany has the rights to use the Merck name everywhere in the world, except in the US and Canada. However, the English High Court has just ruled that the other Merck — the drug maker that is based in the US — breached a 46-year-old agreement and infringed on a trademark by using the name ‘Merck’ alone in the United Kingdom...In the lawsuit filed today, the US Merck argues that its German rival is deliberately pursuing a confusing corporate branding campaign as part of a revamped US business to bolster its presence in oncology...why do both drug makers have the same name?...The original Merck was established as a drug manufacturer in Germany in the 1800’s, but a Merck descendant later immigrated to the US and created a unit known as Merck & Co., which is based in New Jersey. But the company was confiscated by the US government during World War I and later established as a separate drug maker...Perhaps all of this would make more sense if the companies were renamed ‘Murk.’

Uruguayans will be able to choose from three varieties of state-sanctioned cannabis when marijuana starts being sold in pharmacies in the small South American country next year…Each variety will have different levels of...tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol..."There will be three options with indications about the effects of each that point beginners toward starting with the lowest level" of THC...Uruguay became the first country to legalize the cultivation and distribution of marijuana in late 2013, aiming to wrest control of the trade from gangs while regulating and taxing its consumption…Authorities have developed traceable, genetically-distinct plants to ensure they do not leave Uruguay's borders or end up on the black market…The government estimates registered marijuana users will be able to buy the drug from pharmacies in mid-2016, when the country's two licensed producers start selling their first commercial load of about four tonnes…Authorities are also working with companies interested in exploring the possibility of exporting medical marijuana to the United States and Europe...

DEA…today announced results from the 2015 National Drug Threat Assessment, which found that drug overdose deaths are the leading cause of injury (and) death in the United States, ahead of deaths from motor vehicle accidents and firearms. In 2013, more than 46,000 people in the United States died from a drug overdose and more than half of those were caused by prescription painkillers and heroin…Since 2002, prescription drug deaths have outpaced those of cocaine and heroin combined. Abuse of controlled prescription drugs is higher than that of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, MDMA, and PCP combined… Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 25 to 40 times more potent than heroin, has caused more than 700 deaths in the U.S. between late 2013 and early 2015. Fentanyl is sometimes added to heroin batches, or sold by itself as heroin, unknown to the user...

The government of China continues to refine its legal powers to deal with drug safety issues, according to a release from the country's Supreme Court that says investigations will be streamlined to identify administrative cases that potentially involve major criminal breaches...The new measures are designed to "facilitate coordination between administrative and judicial organs in handling food and drug safety cases," according to a report from the Shanghai Daily...The China Food and Drug Administration and the Ministry of Public Security, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the executive office of the food safety commission under the State Council, China's cabinet, said the measures will "streamline" standards and procedures and will include the possibility of suspected drug cases being transferred from administrative bodies such as the CFDA to police...These latest moves are an attempt by Chinese officials to bring trust to the "Made in China" label because most Chinese prefer foreign-made drugs which they believe are higher quality. Several Chinese and Indian companies in recent months have been slammed by regulatory authorities in the United States and Europe over lapses in good manufacturing practices and outright fraud in many cases where test results were falsified.

…gene therapy might soon find itself steeped in a new controversy: soaring drug prices…crucial questions about how much patients will pay directly…industry leaders are…talking about ways to get ahead of potentially massive one-time price tags that could make insurers and patients balk…A gene therapy approved in Europe in 2012 costs close to $1 million, and prices are expected to follow suit in the United States. The therapies in the pipeline are mostly for rare genetic diseases: sickle cell, hemophilia or immune deficiency. Their likely high prices stem from the expected value; unlike drugs that a person takes regularly, gene therapies are designed to be given once and have lasting effects…But everyone involved anticipates the potential backlash against a seven-figure price tag, which is leading to radical proposals. Instead of paying for a treatment all at once, insurers and patients could make installment payments as long as the therapy works…Some researchers are adding up the cost of the traditional treatments that a patient will be able to avoid each year to determine a price that, although high, could lead to savings for the health-care system.

Leaders of India's $15 billion pharmaceuticals industry, a major supplier of affordable generics to the world, have joined public health activists in criticizing a new U.S.-led trade deal they say will delay the arrival of new cheap drugs…The impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership struck last week between 12 nations…but not India, is still being studied by Indian drug makers. But in initial comments, industry executives said provisions in the deal that shield new drug data from competitors would hurt their business in those nations…Countries from the United States to Africa rely on India as a supplier of cheap medicines, earning it the "pharmacy to the world" nickname.