Merck To Cut Another 12,000 To 13,000 Jobs
As we reported two weeks ago, Merck is accelerating its cost cutting and plans to eliminate thousands of more jobs (see our earlier story here). The drugmaker now plans to shed another 12,000 to 13,000 jobs by the end of 2015, which amounts to 12 percent to 13 percent of the 100,000 headcount as of […]
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Is That Plastic Shrink Wrap In Your Merck Vaccine?
As if Merck does not have enough problems with vaccine production, the drugmaker apparently distributed charred bits of plastic shrink wrap in vials of various vaccines – including Gardasil for preventing HPV infection, Varivax for chicken pox, Pneumovax for pneumococcal disease, Zostavax for shingles and MMR II for measles, mumps and rubella, according to Dow […]
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FDA issues Eisai with ‘refuse to file’ letter for epilepsy drug
Eisai has suffered a setback with the news that regulators in the USA have turned down the Japanese drugmaker’s submission for its new antiepileptic perampanel. The US Food and Drug Administration has issued a ‘refusal to file’ letter in response to the company’s New Drug Application for perampanel. The drug, which is also known as […]
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Pfizer Hacking & Pharma Ineptness: Meyer Explains
Last week, the Pfizer Facebook page was hacked by ScriptKiddies, setting off a flurry of chatter about not just hacking, but the extent to which this episode would affect the way drugmakers view the virtues of Facebook and, beyond that, social media (back story). This happened just as Facebook changes it rules so that drugmakers […]
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Kindler Undone: The Dysfunctional Pfizer Culture
For those curious as to what went down before Jeff Kindler unexpectedly resigned last December as the Pfizer ceo, a new treatise in Fortune magazine offers a behind-the-scenes look at the political infighting, overblown aspirations and inept calculations that contributed to his demise, as well as a decade of disappointment and a few spectacular failures […]
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Kindler Undone: The Dysfunctional Pfizer Culture
For those curious as to what went down before Jeff Kindler unexpectedly resigned last December as the Pfizer ceo, a new treatise in Fortune magazine offers a behind-the-scenes look at the political infighting, overblown aspirations and inept calculations that contributed to his demise, as well as a decade of disappointment and a few spectacular failures […]
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Is AstraZeneca Overcharging For Its Bloodthinner?
File this under a not-so Brilinta move? Now, that the FDA has finally approved Brilinta, a bloodthinner developed by AstraZeneca that had to overcome a curious hurdle, the drugmaker has set its pricing. But one Wall Street analyst questions whether AstraZeneca may have priced itself out of the market. To wit, Brilinta will cost about […]
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Clinical Trial Costs Are Rising Rapidly
As drugmakers scramble to replenish their pipelines, they are encountering all sorts of difficulties, including rising costs for clinical trials. And this is happening across all phases. Why? There is increasing competition for trial sites and clinical research organizations that can yield reliable, high quality data, according to a recent survey. And so, 32 percent […]
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A Valeant Pharma Unit Has Problems Making Drugs
Valeant Pharmaceuticals has been on an acquisition spree, but perhaps the Canadian drugmaker may want to conduct a bit more due diligence before its next purchase. One of its recent deals was for Sanitas, which is based in Lithuania and controls Jelfa, another drugmaker based in Poland and that actually produces much of the Sanitas […]
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FDA Says CRO Studies Should Be Reevaluated
This is every drugmaker’s nightmare. The pharmaceutical industry has been put on alert by the FDA that any clinical tests conducted between April 2005 and June 2010 by a contract research organization called Cetero Research may have to be reevaluated because two FDA inspections and an outside audit found falsified data and manipulated samples. There […]
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