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The disclosure of payments by pharmaceutical companies to doctors is part of a wider movement to encourage doctors to disclose who pays them, and for what. If you log on to www.whopaysthisdoctor.org you may find out, although to date only a few doctors have jumped at this brave pledge of transparency before being pushed.

Baxter has snapped up private German biotech SuppreMol and its operations in Munich for 200 million euros.

Bristol-Myers Squibb has bought itself the chance of snapping up rights to Bavarian Nordic’s experimental prostate cancer immunotherapy Prostvac in a deal that could net the latter more up to $975 million.

The US Food and Drug Administration has launched its first mobile app to provide the public and healthcare professionals with timely information on drug shortages. 

MPs and Peers are calling for an end to the ‘institutional bias’ against mental health which they claim is rife across the National Health Service, and are urging the incoming government to ramp up efforts to create equality between mental and physical health services.

The overriding message in new guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence on medicines optimisation out today is that patients should be central to all decisions on care to ensure the best treatment outcomes are achieved.

In an incredibly speedy move, US regulators have approved Bristol-Myers Squibb’s PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor Opdivo (nivolumab) for lung cancer just one week after officially agreeing to review the application.

Why were further changes to the ABPI Code’s 2014 recommendations on transparency and disclosure required?

Pfizer’s pneumonia jab Prevnar 13 has picked up another approval in Europe, with regulators issuing a green light for its use in adults aged 18 years and older.

GlaxoSmithKline is selling its Opiates business in Australia to Indian drugs giant Sun Pharmaceutical for an undisclosed amount.

It is looking likely that patients with hepatitis C will get National Health Service access to Gilead’s combination therapy Harvoni (ledipasvir-sofosbuvir) in England and Wales.

US regulators have agreed to review Actelion’s submission for new pulmonary arterial hypertension drug Uptravi (selexipag) within a standard timeframe.

AstraZeneca is linking with Cambridge University to identify, train and mentor biotech start-ups.

Boehringer Ingelheim has filed idarucizumab for approval in the US, European Union and Canada for use in patients requiring an antidote to the bloodthinner Pradaxa.

Thirty-three European countries have been heads down for almost two years setting the scene for what will be one of pharma’s most coming-of-age transformations – releasing the intimate (and potentially uncomfortable) details of exactly which doctors have been paid by which pharma companies, what for and how much. Driven through by the European trade body EFPIA, the move, which came into force on 1 January this year, marks the societal shift and expectation that big pharma has no alternative now but to embrace transparency.