Patient Genetics and Online Collaboration

Is the future in controlled clinical trials, or IT driven collaborations to share health experiences? The answer is obviously a mixture of both, but patient/industry collaborations are making some very positive steps towards becoming a powerful tool. This great article from NYTimes highlights some collaborations already formed. For example, in June this year, the Belgian [...]

Are Placebo’s Getting More Effective?

At least some people believe they are – particularly those drug companies whose pipeline champions are being sunk by the famous effect. This Wired article offers a great list of drugs recently entombed by the placebo effect. It also explains it’s history and the concern it is causing in drug development. But I disagree that [...]

Genome and Metabolic Scans the new anti-Cancer Weapon

New cancer treatments are one of the most precipitous of all drugs to develop. But a renewed focus on the DNA mutations that make each cancer unique is about to expand our ability to find new treatments. Traditionally, cancer drugs have been developed by identifying compounds, more recently antibodies, that have a highly toxic effect [...]

US Politicians to Ban Drug Ads

Direct to Consumer, as it is known, is when pharmaceutical companies market their wares to the public. It is only allowed in a few countries like the USA and New Zealand, and with restrictions. But a move is on to limit or ban them altogether. This NYTimes article explains the politicians motivations. On the whole, [...]

Clinical Trials Evolving

A NYTimes article, Lack of Study Volunteers Is Said To Hobble Fight Against Cancer, gives some stark statistics about the diminishing availability of patients for cancer trials, and hints at some of the broader problems in the world of clinical trials. At a recent NHMRC Clinical Trials  meeting, several presentations dealt with the changing nature [...]

Simple Inventions are the Best

And this is one example of haw a little creativity can go a long way! Bob Terwilliger, a 64-year-old Palm Beach County native and multimillion-dollar businessman, came out of retirement to help Dr. Brian Kaplan’s create a rotating label on children’s medication that will base doses on a child’s weight and not age. It sounds [...]

Pharma backed Medical Education Under Fire

From FiercePharma: Continuing medical education (CME) has been bastardized by pharma funding, an HHS inspector general told Congress, and needs a complete overhaul. Lewis Morris, chief counsel for the HHS office of inspector general, said that industry doesn’t just shape the courses, it has also used CME to promote off-label uses. And Morris was just [...]

Personalized Medicine at JnJ

It’s encouraging to hear that one of the worlds largest healthcare companies is investing heavily in personalized medicine. It is also interesting to note that they are aware just how expensive it is likely to be, at least in the short term, but never the less feel it is imperative to begin work now. Read [...]

M-Health forging Ahead

Here are some great articles from mobilehealthnews.com on the uptake of mobile health solutions, particularly using the iphone: Roche decides it’s time to enter mHealth. Roche Diagnostics inked a deal with Glucose Buddy iPhone app developer Healthagen, because Roche believes that the time to get into the wireless health market is now. While the company’s [...]

Pharma 2020: PwC Analysis

PwC’s latest industry synopsis offers some of the bleeding obvious, but also a few gems that I think companies are perhaps not too aware of. The clincher for me is in the following excerpt: Management guru Clay Christensen has convincingly demonstrated how disruptive innovations in various industries have dismantled the prevailing business model, by enabling [...]