YouTube Pharmaceutical Watch: Which Company's Videos Rock?

Mark Sendak, author of the incisive EyeonFDA blog and social media enthusiast, has been keeping a watchful eye (pun intended) on the growing number of pharmaceutical companies that are adding channels and videos to YouTube. 

On his blog today, Mark reviews several new channels developed by Novartis, Johnson and Johnson, Teva, Boehringer Ingelheim and AstraZeneca. While a growing number of pharmaceutical companies continue to add new channels on YouTube, Mark contends that the “success of these channels has varied greatly and several companies have obviously developed the channels without any idea of what they would like to do with them and some of the channels show obvious signs of neglect.”

To learn more about pharma’s incursion on YouTube, read Mark’s post!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Video Watching

 

Religion, Infectious Diseases and Medical Care

It has been a long standing practice of mine to avoid co-mingling science and religious issues in any of the materials that I post online. I have refrained from doing this because I believe that enough tension already exists between religious advocates and scientists.   However, I was unable to control myself today after my wife pointed out two interesting articles in Wednesday’s New York Times.

The first article dealt with Pope Benedict XVI’s views on condom use and HIV transmission in Africa. Yesterday in Cameroon, he publicly said, for the first time, that condoms are not the answer to Africa’s fight against AIDS. Not only did this statement send a collective shiver down the spines of many HIV health workers, clergy working with AIDS patients are divided on the issue. The pope told reporters that “You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem.” Apparently, church dogma suggests that fidelity in marriage and abstinence from premarital sex are crucial weapons in the fight against AIDS. There are currently 22 million people in sub-Saharan Africa infected with HIV and three-quarters of all HIV/AIDS deaths occur in the region. Apparently, attempting to be faithful and just saying no doesn’t seem to work in Africa—or anywhere else! The pope’s statement prompted a representative from the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa to say “Instead, his opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is more important to him than the lives of Africans.” Ironically, Africa is the fastest-growing region for the Roman Catholic Church.

The second article reported the results of a study which showed that terminally ill cancer patients who drew comfort from religion were almost three-times as likely to seek aggressive, life-prolonging treatments as compared with less religious patents. Also, the most religious patients were much more likely to ask doctors to do ‘everything possible to keep them alive.’  Study results showed that patients who were devout were three times as likely as less religious patients to be put on a mechanical ventilator to maintain breathing during the last week of life, and they were less likely to do any advance care planning, like signing a do-not-resuscitate order or preparing a living will. The findings prompted one of the study’s authors—it will appear in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)—to say “People think that spiritual patients are more likely to say their lives are in God’s hands — ’Let what happens happen’ — but in fact we know they want more aggressive care.” To explain this apparent paradox, the author speculated “To religious people, life is sacred and sanctified and there’s a sense they feel it’s their duty and obligation to stay alive as long as possible.” Alternately, in my opinion it may be that religious people haven’t adequately dealt with the possibility of their demise and are hoping for miracles—medical or religious— to keep them alive because they are deathly (pun intended) afraid of dying? Regardless, aggressive life-prolonging care is expensive, Medicare spends about one-third of its budget on people who are in their last year of life and much of that is spent on patients at the very end of their lives. Moreover, researchers have found that aggressive end-of-live care for terminal patients frequently can lead to a more painful process of dying and greater shock and grief for family members.

One of the few places in the world where the nexus of religion and science is difficult to fathom is the US—one of the most scientifically advanced and religious nations in the world. Several years ago, I met a scientist at a FASBEB Career meeting who, for the first time, was able to successfully articulate to me how science and religion can co-exist in American society (she taught in the South). While I can’t recall her exact words, she said something like “Both science and religion have their purpose and place in society. However, they are belief systems that are not interchangeable. That is why I can believe in God and still fully endorse and embrace evolution. They serve different purposes for me and help me to live my life.” With this in mind, I don’t think that religious dogma should be invoked when it comes to treating patients or inhibiting advances in public health, science and medicine.

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

The Weekly Pharma Merger Roundup

As you all know by now, Merck announced on Monday that it will purchase Schering Plough for $41.1billion in a deal constructed as a reverse merger. The reverse merger strategy was concocted to prevent the new company from losing the international sale rights to Remicade, Johnson and Johnson’s lucrative, blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis drug. According to the original deal inked by Johnson and Johnson and Schering Plough, Schering would have to surrender its rights to Remicade— which generated $2.1 billion in sales outside of the US last year —and golimumab (which is pending approval in Europe) if current ownership of Schering changes. Golimumab (CNTO 148) is Johnson and Johnson’s Centocor division next-generation human anti-TNF-alpha monoclonal antibody be developed as monthly subcutaneous treatment for adults with active forms of rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis.  Since the merger was announced on Monday, Johnson and Johnson hasn’t issued any public statements about the deal—prompting some analysts to speculate that Johnson and Johnson may well make a counteroffer to acquire Schering Plough. Others believe that Johnson and Johnson will challenge the new company’s international rights to Remicade and golimumab despite the great lengths that Merck and Schering Plough management went to structure the acquisition as a reverse merger. Stay tuned for updates.

In other merger news, US-based Gilead announced that it will acquire CV Therapeutics for about $1.4 billion. The deal tops the hostile takeover offer from Astellas Pharma of Japan. Gilead, an HIV drug manufacturer is purchasing CV Therapeutics—which sells the cardiovascular drugs Ranexa (chronic angina) and Lexican (reduces stress during cardiovascular surgical procedures)—to expand its therapeutic repertoire beyond virology. The stock prices of shares of Gilead and CV Therapeutics jumped after the announcement signaling Wall Street’s approval of the deal.   Nevertheless, it may be premature for Gilead and CV Therapeutics to begin celebrating—Astellas may very well tender a counteroffer!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!

 

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BioJob News: Novartis to Expand Research Operations in Cambridge, MA

Novartis announced today that it will open a new research facility and hire an additional 150 people by the end of 2009 for a Research Center of Excellence in Virology in Cambridge, MA. That will increase the number of people employed by the company in Cambridge to more than 1,800 workers. Researchers at the new center will study vaccines for HIV/AIDS influenza, cytomegalovirus (CMV) and respiratory syncitial virus (RSV). 

The vaccine business once avoided like the plague by most pharma companies, has been growing by leaps and bound over the past five years and is sizzling hot these days. According to analysts, vaccines generated about $16 billion dollars last year. For example, Merck’s anti-human papilloma virus vaccine Gardasil generated $1.5 billion in sales in 2007.

Novartis clearly sees an upside in the vaccine business and is willing to make a wise investment for the future.

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!

Manufacturing Problems at Pfizer

Can anything else go wrong at Pfizer? Unfortunately for Pfizer employees, the answer is yes. Pfizer and FDA announced late last week that they found detectable levels of the mutagen/carcinogen ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) in Viracept, the company’s flagship anti-HIV medication. EMS has long been known to be a potent mutagen and carcinogen. I can attest to the mutagenic potential of EMS, because in my former life as a bench scientist I routinely used it to generate point mutations in the bacteria that I was working with.

Pfizer and FDA agreed not to recall the drug in the US because the quantity of EMS found was “low”. However, Roche, the company that sells Viracept in Europe, did recall the drug (slightly higher levels of EMS were found in the European version of Viracept). Predictably, FDA cautioned that although there are no human data, EMS has been shown to cause mutations, tumors and birth defects in animals and is a "potential human carcinogen. Not surprisingly, Pfizer advises children and pregnant women not to start the drug, although children already taking it may continue (really?).
How EMS got into both the US and European versions of the drug remains a mystery. If I had to guess, it is likely that there are significant quality control and quality assurance issues at the manufacturing plant(s) that produces Viracept. Alternatively, the EMS may have always been present in Viracept (as a contaminant or chemical by product) but nobody thought to look for it until recently. According to one report, “Pfizer is working with the FDA to prospectively limit EMS levels in Viracept, while still considering the immediate needs of patients on therapy. This is nonsense. There are other protease inhibitors that HIV-infected patients can try before they continue to take EMS-tainted Viracept. I think that Pfizer should voluntarily recall Viracept and eliminate all traces of EMS before it is reintroduced to the US and European markets!

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!!!!