Category Archives: Manufacturing

Judgment Day for Pfizer Factories

For once, pharma sales reps and R&D guys can breathe a sigh of relief. The latest round of industry layoffs comes from Pfizer, but this time it will affect the manufacturing force, which will be downsized by 6,000 employees by 2015. In 2006, the company announced plans to save $4 billion to $5 billion, and after [...]
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H1N1 Vaccine Quantities to Fall Short of Predictions

Image by â– Guerry via Flickr The US may not have as many H1N1 flu vaccines available from the get-go as originally anticipated, CBS News reported on Tuesday. According to the report, approximately 45 million doses will be available in mid-October—that’s down from the original plan of 120 million doses. The new plan calls for [...]
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WHO Pushes H1N1 Flu to Pandemic State

Image by Quiplash! via Flickr The Word Health Organization just bumped the H1N1 influenza to pandemic alert phase 6 (the highest alert level), making it the first worldwide pandemic in 41 years. According to WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, 30,000 cases of the swine flu have been reported in 74 countries, but there is a very good possibility [...]
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Times’ Drug-Supply Snoops Bag a Pulitzer

The New York Times likes to give the drug industry a hard time with its (unbranded) scandal of the week series—off-label promoting, suppressing data, that sort of thing. But when the 2008 Pulitzer Prizes were handed out on Monday, the winner for best investigative reporting was a series by the Times that even its harshest [...]
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Heparin Contaminant Identified

After weeks of questions and few answers, FDA has identified the contaminant in batches of Baxter’s blood-thinner heparin as over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate, a modified version of a biologically derived compound not found in heparin. The over-sulfated compound found in the batches is unnatural and is more than likely chemically modified, Janet Woodcock, director of FDA’s Center [...]
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