Adeline Siew

In Part 1 of this blog, Richard Freeman looked at some of the challenges faced by pharma firms today as a result of growing competition, regulation and globalization, and argued that more effective communication and collaboration was key to their continued success.

For an industry that saves millions of lives, pharma is sometimes unfairly perceived by the public as being aloof, unresponsive, or occasionally worse.

Life sciences and biotech research clusters across the UK, including those linked to university research departments are benefiting from an improved funding climate and ongoing consolidation in the pharmaceutical sector.

We all know that the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming was a turning point in medical history, which led to the development of lifesaving antibiotics.

CPhI Worldwide and CPhI Pharma Evolution, part of UBM Live’s Pharmaceutical Portfolio, today released Part II of the CPhI annual industry report, in which expert industry panel members share their views on trends that will drive growth and innovation across the pharmaceutical industry over the coming years and beyond.

It’s Day 2 at CPhI and the remaining findings of the annual expert industry report were released today during the show. As continuous processing continues to revolutionize manufacturing, Emil Ciurczak, principal at Doramax Consulting, believes that large batch production will one day be a thing of the past.

A team of scientists recently reported on the first study of interactions between the antiretroviral drug, amprenavir, and the HIV-1 protease enzyme.

Craig Stobie from Domino Printing Sciences shares on how to prepare for FMD and other emerging legislation.

Guest blog written by Adrian Tombling, partner and patent attorney at Withers & Rogers LLP.

While it may not happen often, clinical trials can sometimes be halted by patent disputes, leading to costly delays in bringing new drugs to market. At last, the UK Government has decided to do something about this in a bid to make UK patent law more consistent with that in some other parts of the world.

It is well known that the pharmaceutical industry spends billions each year on promoting their products, especially to healthcare professionals.

The issue of patients not receiving essential medicines because they cannot afford them is becoming a serious problem in the EU as the region battles through its economic crisis.

The global market for biosimilar drugs has been forecasted to be worth $2.445 billion this year, according to a new report by British market research specialist Visiongain.

Evidence of health outcomes is what payers want to see. As a result, biotech companies are now focussing more on demonstrating economic value, for example, by showing survival benefit of a cancer drug or superiority to branded or generic competitors.

AstraZeneca and Exco InTouch have announced a program to develop and launch interactive mobile phone and internet-based health tools that will help patients in the UK and their healthcare providers to track and manage chronic conditions.

Ernst & Young recently released its annual biotechnology industry report, Beyond Borders: Matters of Evidence, stating that while the major players are performing well, it is essential that small- to mid-size biotech companies focus on demonstrating the value of products in their pipelines instead of just creating a drug that works.

Steven Eaton, a scientist working for Aptuit, a US pharmaceutical company, has been jailed three months for falsifying preclinical safety data on experimental anticancer drugs due for clinical evaluation.

More than 400 eminent scientists and public health experts from around the world have come together to endorse a new initiative to eradicate polio by 2018.

“Our vision of success is to enhance and improve the health of millions of people every day through the effective regulation of medicines and medical devices, underpinned by science and research,” stated the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) of the United Kingdom as it unveiled its 2013–2018 corporate plan on 11 April.

New figures show that last year, doctors in the UK received approximately £40 million from big pharmaceutical companies.

The European Commission (EC) has released the draft revision for four chapters of its good manufacturing practice (GMP) guidelines-chapters 3, 5, 6 and 8.

The UK government has confirmed that from 2014 onwards, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which is the country’s cost-effectiveness watchdog, will play a central role in the new value-based pricing system for assessing the costs and benefits of medicines.

Janssen is partnering with the UK National Health Service (NHS) on a new programme that seeks to inspire innovative ideas that will help reshape and improve the way dementia care is delivered.

There are growing concerns regarding the safety of third- and fourth-generation combined oral contraceptives following media reports on blood clots (venous thromboembolism) associated with the use of more recently-introduced contraceptive products containing newer progestins such as drospirenone, gestodene and desogestrel.

Six of the world’s leading health research centres have joined forces to form a global alliance that seeks to strengthen international academic and not-for-profit drug development.

Over the last two years, the gap between analysts’ estimates of big pharma sales and the global drug market forecast by IMS Health has widened significantly.

Continuous manufacturing is now becoming a trend as its advantages are being increasingly recognized.

On the second day of the PDA/EMA joint conference, we had a choice of three different topics, all running simultaneously:

Last week, I attended the PDA/EMA joint conference in Cascais, Portugal.