News

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is sticking with its stance that Novartis’ Certican is too expensive for National Health Service use as a treatment for organ rejection in liver transplant patients.

Shire is reportedly making a move on Swiss biotech giant Actelion, according to UK newspaper The Sunday Times.

US regulators have suspended operations at The National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s drug production lab because of serious manufacturing issues.

Until four years ago, Germany was one of very few Western countries where pharmaceutical companies remained free to set prices at the level they chose. As a result, drug prices were renowned for being as much as 26% higher than average prices across the EU. However, all this changed at the beginning of 2011. Faced with spiraling costs and the prospect of an €11 billion deficit in the state’s statutory health insurance scheme, the government took action.

US Food and Drug Administration advisors are backing approval of Sprout’s ADDYI as the world’s first medicine for low female libido, on the proviso that the firm develops a risk management programme to keep its safety in check.

There was mixed news for prostate cancer patients in England and Wales after NHS cost regulators endorsed Bayer’s Xofigo but turned down Ferring’s Firmagon.

Mind-control technology might give you the heebie-jeebies but for people who are paralysed or can’t communicate it could change their life I magine if you could turn on the television simply by thinking it. Crazy? Well, it’s not that far-fetched. Progress in the brain-computer interface space is moving rapidly. Samsung, IBM and Philips are three big names exploring this area, and already the media has reported on a thought-powered toy helicopter and mind-controlled robotic arm. 

UK patients with serious skin infections could get access to a new treatment option following today’s nationwide rollout of MSD’s new antibiotic Sivextro.

Software group Veeva Systems has posted a 35% rise in first-quarter revenues to $89.9 million, after a 42% leap in its subscription services for the life sciences industry.

Swiss drug giant Novartis has decided not buy Israel-headquartered stem cell specialist Gamida Cell.

Patients with psoriatic arthritis have been granted access to Janssen’s biologic therapy Stelara on the National Health Service in England and Wales.

As part of a new ‘Success Regime’, healthcare regulators in England are stepping in to tackle under-performing NHS services across three regions in a system-wide approach that also encompasses community and social care.

When the media writes about pharma companies’ profitability, it is usually as an accusation. In most industries the ability to stay out of the red would prompt admiration, but there is widespread distaste about profit-making anywhere in the healthcare sector, as well as more justifiable concern about the high price of some new medicines. As a result, the pharma industry attracts headlines such as: “Pharmaceutical industry gets high on fat profits”, which came from BBC News last year.

Genzyme’s enzyme-replacement therapy olipudase alfa has picked up Breakthrough Designation from the US Food and Drug Administration as a treatment for a rare genetic lysosomal storage disease.

Men suffering from constipation in Europe can now get treatment with Shire’s Resolor after regulators issued another green light substantially expanding its reach.