Author: PharmaTimes

The global pharmaceutical industry has pledged to set up a worldwide clinical trials register in a bid to reassure patients about drug safety in the wake of the furore that has arisen over the issue.

Hard on the heels of its recent European approval [[23/12/04c]], GlaxoSmithKline has launched its new combination tablet for HIV, Kivexa (lamivudine and abacavir sulfate), in the UK and Germany. The launch extends GSK’s franchise in HIV medications and answers the continuing need for new products that combine multiple drugs into simpler dosing regimens, to improve compliance and reduce the risk that the virus will develop resistance to treatment.

Anglo-Swedish company, AstraZeneca, which has hit the headlines in recent months after suffering a series of drug-related setbacks, is to cut 500 sales positions in the USA.

Sanofi-Aventis has received a boost on the news that a judge in the USA has chosen March 4 as the date for the submission of the pre-trial order for a patent dispute concerning its top-selling super-aspirin, Plavix (clopidogrel).

The reputation of hormone replacement therapy took yet another knocking this morning after the results of an analysis of 28 clinical trials saying that women using HRT were at a 29% increased risk of suffering a stroke were published in the British Medical Journal.