Author: Peter Mansell

A multidisciplinary working party set up by the UK’s Royal College of Physicians (RCP) is gathering evidence in an effort to improve the tripartite relationship between the pharmaceutical industry, the National Health Service and academic medicine to the ultimate benefit of patients.

US-based contract research organisation PPD, Inc has narrowed its guidance for revenues and earnings per share in 2007, after already lowering the guidance last July as R&D costs accelerated and new business authorisations fell short of target.

In an indication of China’s growing clout as a base for contract research, Shanghai-based WuXi PhamaTech has moved into the US market with a definitive agreement to acquire AppTec Laboratory Services for around $151 million.

Pharmaceutical companies must change the way they conduct R&D if they are to ride out pressures to develop new prescription medicines more swiftly and at lower cost, warns the director of the US Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development.

Prescribing antipsychotic drugs such as risperidone (Risperdal, Johnson & Johnson) to curb aggressive behaviour in people with learning disabilities may be less effective than a placebo, a new study suggests.