Author Archives: Julian Upton

UK Reacts to AZ Job Cuts

By Julian Upton | Published: February 2, 2012
UK Waits for AZ Job Cut Breakdown As this blog was posted, AstraZeneca was still keeping the world in suspense as to a further breakdown of its announced 7,300 job cuts. The company’s UK staff assembled for a meeting at 10 am, but as of lunchtime there was still no confirmation of the actual numbers , [...]
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Patient Privacy Fears Taint UK Innovation Plans

By Julian Upton | Published: December 5, 2011
Patient Privacy Fears Taint UK Innovation Plans The Conservative arm of the UK’s coalition government flexed its private-sector-friendly muscles again on Monday with the announcement that the National Health Service should be ‘opened up’ to private healthcare firms. In a pharma-friendly speech peppered with the usual buzzwords, Prime Minister David Cameron said: “The end-game is for [...]
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GSK's Andrew Witty: Further Concerns for Europe

By Julian Upton | Published: November 30, 2011
GSK’s Andrew Witty underlined his growing concerns with the business climate in Europe with his comments to the UK’s High Pay Commission last week. The Commission, set up by left-wing pressure group Compass, reported on the ‘corrosive’ effects of ‘boardroom excess’ and called for greater transparency in the setting of executive pay. The pay of [...]
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Election Landslide: What Now for Spanish Healthcare?

By Julian Upton | Published: November 22, 2011
The fact that the eurozone is in a tailspin is hardly ‘news’, but when heads start rolling as fast as they have done recently in Greece, Italy, and now Spain, it leaves the unsettling feeling that the heat on an already intense situation has been turned up one more notch.
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Roche Gets Tough on Greece

By Julian Upton | Published: September 21, 2011
Roche Gets Tough on Greece, Other Eurozone Countries May Follow On Friday Roche confirmed it had come to the end of its tether with state-funded hospitals in Greece. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, CEO Severin Schwan announced that the company has increased shipments of drugs to pharmacies in the country, while cutting off [...]
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