“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”
— William Wilberforce
Story Highlights The FDA has reported its first drug shortage as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak in China. Many drug ingredients and finished drug products used in the U.S are sourced and manufactured in China. The possibility of potential drug shortages highlights the issue of how the U.S. is heavily reliant on China for […]
China’s National Medical Products Administration has announced that two Chinese pharmaceutical companies, Walvax Biotechnology and Innovax, have been approved to start selling their own version of drugs previously available only through global pharmaceutical giants Pfizer, Merck and GlaxoSmithKline.1 Cecolin, developed by Innovax, will compete in the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) arena against Merck’s Gardasil and […]
In July 2019, drug and French vaccine manufacturer Sanofi signed a deal with Roche Pharmaceuticals to obtain exclusive over-the-counter (OTC) rights for Tamiflu (oseltamivir), an antiviral drug licensed for the treatment of influenza infections. Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, currently sells Tamiflu in the United States only for prescription use.1 Tamiflu is a […]
A recent report by Fortune Business Insights projects the value of the world market for vaccines to reach $93.08 billion by 2026, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 10.7 percent during the forecast period.1 One of the main drivers of the vaccine market is the need for greater supplies of vaccines, given stricter government […]
Vaccine manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) of the United Kingdom has partnered with Viome, a gut microbiome test company in Seattle, Washington to better understand bacteria that live in the digestive tract and the role they play in the body’s immune system response.1 According to Emmanuel Hanon, senior vice president for research and development at GSK Vaccines, […]
On Aug. 6, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a statement saying that Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis AG submitted a biologics license application (BLA) for the spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) gene therapy Zolgensma (onasemnogene abeparvovec-xioi) with manipulated data and failed to inform regulators until June 28, 2019—more than a month after the […]
Colombia’s national regulatory agency, the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce (SIC), has fined pharmaceutical company Pfizer $25,000 for allegedly inflating the price of several prescription drugs it sold in that country.1 2 On July 31, 2019, the agency stated: The decision was taken after verifying information related to PFIZER SAS’ commercial operations between July and December […]
In a lawsuit filed by the state of Oklahoma against Johnson & Johnson, Inc., Purdue Pharma LP and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., the pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries were ordered on Aug. 26, 2019 to pay $572 million in penalties for helping to fuel the opioid crisis in Oklahoma.1 Before the trial […]
Story Highlights Google, the world’s most widely used internet search engine, restructured itself to give semi-independence to its many subsidiary organizations under a new umbrella entity called Alphabet. Two of the divisions are focused on the business of medicine and operate in partnership with some of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies that develop and […]
After the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publicized measles outbreaks in several states beginning in January 2019, on May 1 Merck & Co. announced that it had increased production of its live attenuated (weakened) virus MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine in response to an increasing demand for the product in the United States. […]