Monthly Archives: July 2008

What a Week! Roche and Genentech … and Mirus!?!

By Walter Armstrong | Published: July 25, 2008
The big news this week—and, for that matter, this year—is Roche’s offer to buy the 44 percent of Genentech that it doesn’t already own. The blogosphere is burning with all the predictable predictions, dire and otherwise, attendant on a big pharma takeover of a biotech. The phrase “killing the goose that’s been laying the golden [...]
Posted in Biotech, Deals, Gene therapy, R&D, Strategy, Technology | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

A Black Friday in AIDS

By Walter Armstrong | Published: July 18, 2008
Yesterday the hope of “a global AIDS vaccine in our lifetime” was pretty much shattered. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime commander of the US’s wavering war on AIDS, delivered the last nail in the coffin of what had been a bold research and development effort by both Merck and the National Institutes of Health to [...]
Posted in R&D | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Clinton Tinkers With Malaria Market

By Joanna Breitstein | Published: July 17, 2008
A team of reporters and camera crews packed into the headquarters of the Clinton Foundation on West 125th Street this afternoon to hear the details of former President Bill Clinton’s plan to tinker with the market for malaria drugs “in a way that has positive implications for the pharmaceutical companies,” he said.
Posted in Corporate Responsibility | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

"Side Effects" and "The Normalization of Suspicion"

By Patrick Clinton | Published: July 16, 2008
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Mark Herrmann, an attorney with Jones Day, co-proprietor of the Drug and Device Law blog, as well as an occasional contributor to Pharm Exec, has a lively review of Alison Bass’ Side Effects, a new book that tells the story of the campaign against Paxil. His bottom line is a [...]
Posted in Corporate Responsibility, Safety | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

No More Approvable Letters: An Expert's Take

By Walter Armstrong | Published: July 16, 2008
In response to last week’s blog about FDA’s announcement that, in future reviews of NDAs, it will ditch approvable and nonapprovable letters for “neutral” complete-review letters, Russ Somma sent an interesting and informative take on the likely effect of the new system on the industry. Somma is president of SommaTech, a pharmaceutical development technology consulting [...]
Posted in R&D, Regulatory, Safety | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment