Category Archives: Weekly news mash-up

Healthcare headlines this week

Posted on January 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

U.S. drug regulators need further clinical data, possibly including new clinical studies, before approving a new diabetes drug from AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb.  The two companies said on Thursday they had received a so-called “complete response letter” from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for dapagliflozin as a treatment for type 2 diabetes in adults. Continue reading →

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Summary of news this week in health

Posted on December 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

Costco has entered the health IT business with a nationwide rollout of a cloud-based electronic health record (EHR) designed for small physician practices.  Costco is pricing its MyWay package at $599 per doctor per month, or $499 for physicians who become “executive members” of Costco. The package encompasses not only the EHR, but also an integrated practice management system, a patient portal, training, implementation, maintenance, and claims submission. Hardware is not included, but the remotely hosted software does not require an onsite server. Continue reading →

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What was the buzz this week in healthcare news ?

Posted on December 16, 2011 | Leave a comment

Big drugmakers, under pressure to streamline operations in the face of rising costs and slowing sales, are looking to the automotive industry for tips on tuning up their profit engines.  That may raise eyebrows because profitability in the drugs industry, with a 10 percent pretax return on invested assets, is roughly double that in the global auto sector. But as drugmakers face healthcare cuts, a record wave of patent expiries and increased regulatory hurdles for new drugs, they may need to take a page from carmakers’ playbook when it comes to ruthless streamlining and cost cutting. Continue reading →

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Summary of weekly healthcare news

Posted on December 9, 2011 | Leave a comment

Men taking multiple medications for different health conditions may have a higher risk of erectile dysfunction – a link that doesn’t seem to be explained by the health problems themselves, a new study finds.   But in the new study, researchers found a link between medication use and ED independently of those medical conditions.  Of 37,700 men in a large California health plan, researchers found that those on three or more medications had higher rates of ED. Continue reading →

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Summary of healthcare news

Posted on November 11, 2011 | 2 Comments

Despite the challenges for pharma in social media, the industry accounted for 4 percent of the $25.8 billion spent on overall US online advertising last year, according to new estimates from eMarketer. eMarketer also predicts that healthcare and pharma advertisers will see double digit growth over the next few years, rising from U.S. $1.03 billion in 2010 to $1.86 billion in 2015. Continue reading →

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Stories from healthcare marketing this week

Posted on November 4, 2011 | 3 Comments

In one of the largest settlements of its kind, GlaxoSmithKline PLC said it will pay the U.S. government $3 billion to settle several long-running criminal and civil investigations into the company, including allegations that Glaxo marketed some drugs illegally and defrauded the Medicaid program.  The settlement will also cover a Justice Department probe into Glaxo’s development and marketing of the diabetes drug Avandia, which has been linked to heart-attack risks. Continue reading →

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Healthcare news from this week

Posted on October 21, 2011 | 1 Comment

New Abbott sales data shows that physicians are reconsidering whether to prescribe a drug used to raise levels of good cholesterol after a study earlier this year questioned whether it reduced the risk of heart attacks.  It was the first full three-month reporting period since a large National Institutes of Health study in May showed Niaspan did not protect against heart attacks in patients with heart disease when taken with the popular generic cholesterol drug simvastatin, also known by the brand name Zocor. Continue reading →

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Friday healthcare summary

Posted on October 7, 2011 | 1 Comment

The Institute for Policy Studies finds that the 2004 tax holiday enabled 843 companies to reduce tax rates from 35 percent to just over 5 percent. These companies repatriated $312 billion in profits, while avoiding about $92 billion in federal taxes.   Drugmakers, however, were singled out as prime beneficiaries – they repatriated more than $100 billion in offshore earnings, and kept an estimated $30 billion in tax savings. Continue reading →

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Another Friday..another summary of headlines in healthcare

Posted on September 30, 2011 | 2 Comments

Drug companies sponsoring human trials of possible new medications have ethical responsibilities to study participants and to science to disclose the results of their clinical research – even when product development is no longer being pursued, says a commentary co-authored by a leading UC Davis drug researcher published online inScience Translational Medicine.  Continue reading →

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Friday healthcare news summary

Posted on September 23, 2011 | 1 Comment

New technologies are flooding into the healthcare world, but the industry is not adequately prepared to protect patients from data breaches, according to a report published on Thursday. A vast majority of hospitals, doctors, pharmacies and insurers are eager to adapt to increasingly digital patient data. However, less than half are addressing implications for privacy and security, a survey of healthcare industry executives by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP found Continue reading →

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Top news healthcare headlines this week

Posted on September 16, 2011 | 1 Comment

Seeking to fend off larger cuts in federal medical spending, executives from big pharmaceutical, hospital and insurance companies are crafting their own plan to reduce the deficit which calls for wringing Medicare savings from beneficiaries, not just from hospitals and drug makers.  Members of the Healthcare Leadership Council—which includes top executives fromPfizer Inc., Aetna Inc. and the Mayo Clinic—on Wednesday are expected to approve a proposal that would call for raising Medicare’s eligibility age and shifting the program toward private plans for beneficiaries.  Continue reading →

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