Big Pharma job cuts and drug prices

AstraZeneca just announced a second round of job cuts amounting to 12 per cent of its workforce by 2014.  That's about 10,000 people according to the Wall Street Journal. AZ is by no means the only one. According to the biomedicalsciencesblog ,  over 50,000 job cuts were announced or implemented by companies such as Pfizer, …

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GSK’s Andrew Witty takes next steps after patent pool

Andrew Witty, CEO of UK's GlaxoSmithKline said recently on a conference call that his company will publish chemical structures of 13,500 compounds that are seen to be active against the key parasite that causes malaria and all related knowledge about them on public websites for scientists.  GSK has a 2 million-strong library of  compounds - essentially building blocks of …

India’s productive drugs regulator

A recent speech made by the union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in Mumbai at the launch of the drugs regulatory authority CDSCO's zonal office in the city pointed to something that we don't usually associate with government -  productivity! According to this speech, in the year 2009 CDSCO has received and processed an eye-popping 21,000 applications up …

WHO and health ministry unlock treasure trove of info

Here's a nice packet that landed in my inbox today. It's a despatch from the World Health Organisation's office in New Delhi. Pls read and access the treasure trove of information.  I'd like to thank  Dr Urmila Thatte, head of the department of clinical pharmacology in KEM Hospital Mumbai for sending it to me.  This is a laudable …