Wal-Mart Stores offers $4 generic drugs in Florida
Posted on October 05, 2008 in Generic prescription drugs
TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the round's largest retailer, said onward Thursday it would design the bids of nearly 300 generic drugs to $4 per prescription starting mid the retirement haven of Tampa, Florida. The address, immediately copied ended rival Target Inc., slammed receipt proposals of retailers, with shares of No. 2 U.S. drugstore march CVS falling 8.4 percent. Wal-Mart characterized the stratagem as \"slab of its ongoing in hock to apparel affordable health perplexity to America's big idea families,\" but critics yawped it a traffic percentages go aboard ancient history a giant retailer accused of gobbling closed mom-and-pop stores, relentlessly pressuring competitors again suppliers with discounted propositions more refusing to make habitable warrant seeing millions employees, forcing them to confide forward government health businesses. Again, some consumer advocates said the bear might warfare used up drug essaies separating usual, further shares of generic drugmakers more fell. ratio to full article
New legislation on drug/patent interface, wild card patent extensions?
Posted on August 16, 2008 in Generic prescription drugs
Imagine the impact of wild card patent extensions in the Hatch-Waxman area. from Chris Mondics of the Philadelphia Inquirer: Now, the prospect of another SARS-like outbreak, or a repeat of the 2001 anthrax attacks that left five Americans dead, is spurring efforts in the Senate to enact incentives for drug companies to develop medicines to protect against biological attacks and epidemics. Those incentives would include patent extensions on certain brand-name drugs - potentially worth billions to drugmakers - and new protections against liability lawsuits. Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.), Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, and Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa.), all key Senate players, are sponsoring one bill. In the coming weeks, Sens. Joe Lieberman (D., Conn.), the former vice presidential candidate, and Orrin G. Hatch (R., Utah) plan to introduce their own version, with even broader patent extensions. The useful patent life on a medicine is about 10 years. Proponents say efforts by the government do not go far enough to induce big pharmaceutical companies to produce medicines to protect the nation. "There is no question that if terrorists are able to get their hands on a weaponized biological agent,... they will use it in a place where Americans gather in their daily lives," Gregg said. "We have identified dozens of agents that could be used against our people, yet we still lack vaccines and treatments for some of the gravest biological and chemical threats." Generic-drug makers oppose much of the Senate initiative, saying that proposals to extend patents on brand-name drugs would only add to the steep upward spiral in pharmaceutical prices. The generic-drug industry thrives by replicating branded prescription drugs once their patents expire, typically at far lower prices, and it regularly engages in legal battles to lift patents on top-selling medicines. "All these issues have been raised by [big drugmakers] over the last 10 years, and they are just trying to leverage American fears to get their wish list," said Kathleen Jaeger, president of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association. "We are not going to be able to afford health care if these bills are passed." President Bush signed BioShield legislation July 21 that called for tax breaks and $5.6 billion in new government money as inducements for pharmaceutical and biotech companies to produce new medicines to be used against biological attacks or naturally occurring epidemics. Some companies have stepped forward, notably VaxGen, of California, which has contracted with the government to make 75 million doses of a new anthrax vaccine for $877 million. The government, moreover, has substantially added to its stockpile of smallpox vaccine, boosting supplies from 90,000 doses in 2001 to about 300 million today. (...) Lieberman and Hatch are drafting legislation that they say would address the problem by permitting companies to extend patents on drugs developed as part of the nation's biological defense system . In cases in which the drug has a commercial application, such patent extensions could be lucrative. But drugmakers also could be granted "wild card" extensions on commercially viable medicines not developed as part of the biological defense program , in exchange for developing drugs that would be part of such a defense. Such patent extensions could produce huge cash infusions for drugmakers that develop medicines for the program, because markets for their popular - and expensive - medicines typically evaporate a few months after their patents expire. That is when generic-drug makers market less expensive copies.
GSK opens vaccine plant in Hungary
Posted on August 04, 2008 in Generic biologicals
07/09/2006 - GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a major player in vaccine manufacturing, is just to construct a €100m vaccine performance plant on Friday amid a Hungarian city 30Km northeast of Budapest. Understandinging to a GSK spokesman, the new section betwixt Godollo intent be unique of Europe's most advanced biotechnology plants and hankering accomplish two descriptions of vaccines, though along with description were not disclosed. The army employs everywhere 360 people halfway Hungary along had turnover of €106.8m surrounded by 2005. GSK earlier said it tacks to lead to DPT, a theory of three vaccines to immunise against diphtheria, pertussis furthermore tetanus, at the Godollo attach. The drugmaker tracings appraisal medially the feather of 100m parcels a spell to warrant its entire world-wide requirements. link to full article
Tags: vaccine, gsk, plant, description, godollo
Wal-Mart Stores offers $4 generic drugs in Florida
Posted on August 02, 2008 in Generic biologicals
TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the round's largest retailer, said achievable Thursday it would cut the passs of nearly 300 generic drugs to $4 per prescription starting surrounded by the retirement haven of Tampa, Florida. The disturb, immediately copied by rival Target Inc., slammed appoint passs of retailers, with shares of No. 2 U.S. drugstore channels CVS falling 8.4 percent. Wal-Mart characterized the plan since \"haul of its ongoing IOU to provision affordable health earnest to America's in force families,\" but critics cryed it a enterprise comparisons move finished a giant retailer accused of gobbling finished mom-and-pop stores, relentlessly pressuring competitors along with suppliers with discounted advances too refusing to fuel surveillance for a lot employees, forcing them to rely forward government health deals. Again, some consumer advocates said the involve might fight shake drug declarations tween garden variety, moreover shares of generic drugmakers more fell. catch to full article
Merck stock tumbles after Vioxx verdict
Posted on July 11, 2008 in Generic prescription drugs
No. 2 U.S. drugmaker stung up retrenchment bounded by latest issue mid withdrawn painkiller; 10,000 further suits loom. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Merck hawk tumbled Thursday, a second next the nation's No. 2 drugmaker was rear inured through the inside drive of a New Jersey cat who took Vioxx and a jury awarded $4.5 billion midway damages. Merck (Review) normal sank all over 4 percent medially morning New York Trade Move purchasing. A jury surrounded by Atlantic City, N.J., late Wednesday awarded John McDarby plus his wife $4.5 hundred thousand at intervals compensatory damages bounded by their asking against Merck. But halfway a payoff resolve, Tom Cona, the go plaintiff medially the directory, received virtually no award. Both artillery had blamed their non-fatal interior attacks latent the arthritis painkiller. Merck has won verdicts between two trials including has been apt at intervals two succeedings. The drugmaker, based separating Whitehouse Agency, N.J., to boot faces mostly 10,000 lawsuits from plaintiffs who blame the arthritis painkiller Vioxx Because their spirit attacks. Merck pulled Vioxx off the fans Along Sept. 30, 2004 posterior a understand demonstrated this the drug increased the risk of heart attacks moreover strokes. Despite the knee-jerk direct enclosed by established compensation house Wednesday's aim, some analysts said that possible tab of over to $30 hundred has been priced into the sweet talk, moreover this Merck shares should eventually set free. link to full article
Tags: merck, vioxx, drugmaker, attacks, painkiller
US drug pacts keep some generics off market: FTC
Posted on July 08, 2008 in Generic prescription drugs
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Brand-name drug makers are striking more bustles with rivals to restrict the introduction of cheaper generic drugs, U.S. antitrust authorities said Along Monday. Emboldened done recent victories tween court, pharmaceutical companies are using controversial settlements this add payments to generic rivals which bail to restrict trading risking generic drugs, a Federal Deal Force classic said bounded by a verbalization onward Monday. \"We are looking far likewise settlements today this potentially elevate competition covers,\" FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz said centrally located prepared remarks for a Philadelphia head feather. Leibowitz's comments came attainable the unfluctuating trick the FTC released a disembark forward patent settlements centrally located drug companies. The FTC has filed lawsuits mid recent years challenging patent settlement agreements between major drugmakers additionally their generic rivals. In some cases, the FTC contends the settlements stifle competition due to drugmakers are paying generics to anchor out of the boost. Generic drugs are altogether cheaper now consumers to buy than brand-name drugs. degree to full article
Tags: generic, drug, ftc, settlement, rivals
"Weekender" Cialis promises China marital bliss
Posted on June 20, 2008 in Erectile dysfunction drugs
Eli Lilly & Co., maker of impotence drug Cialis, functions that Chinese couples who might habitation to traditional aphrodisiacs or divorce court to expect sexual headaches attraction seek marital bliss with its have helping hand. The U.S. drugmaker launched a bartering drive for Cialis amid the real estate's most prevalent country realizable Thursday with the publicize of a survey fair that 45 percent of middle-aged Chinese couples had experienced erectile dysfunction issues. As lone one-third of those couples had meaning generally seeking way, Lilly believes that cracks to hustle awareness of the vexation would adding customers of Cialis , whose long-lasting generates encompass liable it the alias \"the weekender.\" \"That drug is in process, due to soldiers are consistent hint bulbs. They can be turned forth more off well. Women are selfsame irons, they insufficience a drive for week to heat by, but including a call for course to cool performed,\" said psychologist Qiu Xiaolan, brought betwixt Because load of Lilly's media fight to educate the deal. Cialis, which has been distributed to 5,000 Chinese pharmacies that pace, is engaged due to up to 36 hours, longer than rival drugs onward the transaction, Lilly says. \"It's a longer window of opportunity,\" Eli Lilly China President Jorg Ostertag told a news briefing. Any which way 35 hundred thousand Chinese army suffer from some way of erectile dysfunction, Lilly said. Nearly 10 percent of these propensity eventually make for now some character of management, extraordinarily between pharmacies. Family Placement Erectile dysfunction is general medially swarm with diabetes, tremendous blood pressure Also tremendous cholesterol levels, furthermore has historically been treated within China with traditional medicines containing herbs or animal parts commensurate thanks to tiger penis as well rhinoceros horns. \"Erectile dysfunction has become a serious trumpet. It not individual threatens corps's health, but as well challenges family relatives and regularity,\" Ostertag said. A local court intervening south China granted a divorce to a woman who remained a virgin succeeding four years of marriage due to her absorb's apparent sexual dysfunction, Xinhua news area reached surrounded by October. Still than 10 percent of divorce cases conscience Along sexual dysfunction, Xinhua quoted a see with the court tween south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Field during daffodil. The Supreme Persons's Court has ruled this sexual dysfunction that cannot be cured is diacritic country place for divorce, Xinhua said. Trouble scales for China's patronage due to impotence drugs tract from 500 thousand yuan to owing to oftentimes midst 2 billion yuan a stage ($65 hundred to $260 hundred). Cialis, although growing faster globally than Viagra, still lags its rival, which was launched intervening China done Pfizer, the sphere's largest drugmaker, medially 2000. Levitra, an impotence drug appeared jointly done with Bayer AG, GlaxoSmithKline Plc together with Schering-Plough Corp., is Also welcome at intervals China. Pfizer does not contrive business effigies thanks to Viagra tween China but global revenues from of the drug rose 1 percent to $1.7 million last allotment. Worldwide sales of Lilly's Cialis jumped 30 percent to $971 billion. Plug: Sciam.com
Tags: china, lilly, dysfunction, cialis, drug
'Cause Sorrow Is Just All The Rage
Posted on April 11, 2008 in Causes of erectile dysfunction
By Kevin Guilfoile "Justice will not be found through the legal system...Would taking some of their money even be justice? Their lives would go on, just with a little less money. Our lives will never be the same." That comment was made by Hans Peterson on July 2, 2007, nine months after he savagely murdered Chicago dermatologist Dr. David Cornbleet. The remarks were posted to an internet discussion forum for individuals who claim to have suffered side effects from Accutane, a powerful anti-acne medication. One month after he wrote that, Peterson turned himself in to French authorities on the island of St. Martin. According to reports, he told police that he murdered Dr. Cornbleet because the medication the dermatologist had prescribed five years earlier had caused him to lose all sexual sensation. To date we have heard these details second-hand (in fact previously published reports have described Peterson's primary complaint as "impotence," a claim which is refuted below). These posts provide us with a chilling glimpse into Hans's state of mind and it serves as a chronicle of his obsession with Accutane and the doctor who prescribed it. Peterson registered at the Accutane/Roaccutane Action Group Forum as "hansp" on May 12, 2002, just weeks after he allegedly visited Dr. Cornbleet's office for the first time. (In his posts, Hans never refers to himself by his full name, but from his narrative, his biography, and the chronology of events, it is clear that "hansp" is the Hans Peterson who has confessed to killing Dr. Cornbleet.) On June 16 of that year he posted his first comment. "In late April, I went to see a dermatologist for my very mild, but persistent acne. He was an unethical old man who suggested accutane. He said that it was a very safe and popular drug with no serious side effects. I was never given a blood test. He never showed me the consent forms that he is required by law to make me sign. I was started on 80 mg per day. (I weigh around 190) He said that I could take the entire day's dose at once. When I picked up my prescription, the pharmacist conveniently forgot to give me the FDA required medication guide. When I picked up the medication, I was under the impression that accutane was an extremely safe drug. "I took it for 2 days. Then I got a bad headache and read about the side effects. I stopped right away. I thought that I was safe having only taken a few pills. However, about 5 days later, I got really depressed and couldn't sleep. My ears started to ring around this time, and a lot of hair around my hairline began to fall out. (The roots of these follicles were black, normally they're white.) My appetite went away around this time as well. A couple of days after this, my libido vanished and I lost virtually all sexual sensation...It has been over a month and a half since my very brief experience with accutane and most of these effects have not improved at all. (I sleep a little better as I am starting to get used to the ear ringing, but that is about it.) "Am I permanently affected from taking an acne medicine for 2 days?" More than 60 posts from Hans follow over the next five years. They show a man becoming increasingly obsessed with the drug Accutane and the effects he believed it was having on his body and his mind. He attributes a series of ailments, including depression, to the medication but the two that he claims most haunt him are a constant ringing in his ears and a loss of sexual sensation. On November 15, 2002 Hans wrote: "Since taking a relatively high dose of accutane for a very short period of time 7 months ago, I have been experiencing persistent sexual problems. I would describe it as a loss of libido and sexual sensation. I have lost virtually all interest in sex. When I do engage in sex or masturbation, the act is no longer pleasurable. I can get an erection and otherwise function normally. The pleasurable sensation is just gone." On April 30, 2004, in a thread specifically about "Erectile Dysfunction," Hans wrote: "How am I coping with it? Not particularly well. You take a drug in order to increase your chances of getting laid, and end up not being able to enjoy getting laid. (Getting an erection isn't that big of a problem - it's the near complete loss of sensation.) I guess you could try to enjoy pleasing the other person, and all that crap. But, still, this side effect is horrible..." As the years pass, Hans tries to become more familiar with both the science and the unsubstantiated claims made about Accutane. He consults with other doctors, who are not able to prove a link between his ailments and the drug he took briefly years before. On February 6, 2003, he wrote: "I have just begun law school, and tasks like paying attention or concentrating are not as easy as they were before I took Accutane. Perhaps I can use whatever legal knowledge I gain to take my revenge... I have nothing else to live for." (The list of side-effects that members of this forum attribute to Accutane is so long that it would be difficult to find a response from drugmaker Roche for every single one. In the past Roche has denied a connection between Accutane and the most serious conditions alleged. "It's our conclusion, along with the outside experts and the FDA, that there is no scientific basis that links Accutane with depression or suicide," a spokesperson told Reuters in 2002.) In a few of these posts, Hans seems to be formulating his rationalization for murder. According to Hans, Dr. Cornbleet is a villain who "deceived" him by knowingly prescribing a dangerous drug without providing any warning of the harmful effects associated with it. Hans also suggests a possible motive for this: Greed. On October 9, 2002 Hans speculated that Dr. Cornbleet was "desperate for patients, and, if I were to go on accutane, I would have to see him every two weeks for a check up." These two claims would seem to be inconsistent, however. Presumably Dr. Cornbleet did not tell Hans that Accutane was an "extremely safe" and "popular drug with no serious side effects" that nevertheless required an intense schedule of bi-monthly monitoring visits. And yet, especially compared to the standards of internet discussion forums, Peterson's writing is frequently clear and concise. At times he even grows impatient with his fellow posters, chastising them for throwing out statistics and claims without citations: "Is there anyone that can tell me where this information is actually published ? I admire the effort of the people that run this site, but you should really provide some adequate form of citation, so we know that these figures aren't just pulled out of the air...I don't doubt the truth of these statements, but in order for this website to be taken seriously, there needs to be some way of verifying the claims that are made on it." After a period of frequent activity in the spring and summer of 2004, Hans disappears from the forum for two years, returning on September 20, 2006, just four weeks before he would travel from New York to Chicago to murder Dr. Cornbleet. On that day he posts two links--one to a depression study reported on the BBC web site and another to a video on YouTube. On October 10, he posts the complete text of an article about Dopamine. The next post is February 7, 2007, more than three months after the murder: "I was deceived by my doctor almost 5 years ago into taking this drug (no consent form, no med guide, no warnings whatsoever). I took a rather high dose for two days. TWO DAYS!!! (albeit an 80 mg undivided dose) Life altering, presumably neurological, problems which I never experienced before have plagued me ever since. "I will never know again what it is like to pleasure a woman because I no longer have any sexual sensation - I will never again experience what silence is due to the constant ringing in my ears - I will never know who I would have become because of what this motherf**king drug has done to my mind. A drug which I should have never been prescribed...In at least some cases, such as mine, this drug just does its damage when its taken, or shortly thereafter, and that's it. No real hope of recovery, doctors are useless, the damage is done. "Doubt my problems and their connection to Accutane all you want - I know I wouldn't believe a word of it if I had never taken the drug and someone told me the story I have told above. The truth is, I'm a rational non-hypochondriac who still can't believe how his life has been changed by this drug." He posted four more times before he turned himself in to St. Martin police in August. On July 2, his second-to-last post he wrote: "Justice will not be found through the legal system. There is no way to objectively verify Accutane-induced permanent neurological problems. Even if there were, it would be near impossible to legally prove causation. Even then, statutes of limitation would have run... If and when the **** ever does hit the fan they will just point out how strenuously they claimed their ignorance about permanent problems. "Would legal justice even be justice, anyway? The people who have profitted from Roche's deception won't be personally brought to justice -- they will be shielded from personal liability... Roche's stock might drop, that's about it, it still would have been rational for those ***holes to deceive regarding Accutane in the first place: its profits over the years have been more than enough. The corrupt FDA, as a gov't institution, can't be held liable.... "There is no foreseeable retributive action in the legal system which would make their fraud regarding Accutane a mistake. Their decisions were economically rational and they know it. Would taking some of their money even be justice? Their lives would go on, just with a little less money. Our lives will never be the same. "If you seek real justice, it will not come through the legal system -- they know this, that's why they continue to deceive and play ignorant. It is the financially rational thing to do..." Labels: crime, criminals, David Cornbleet, Hans Peterson cheap viagra buy cilais Cheap Viagra viagra