News

With more than 117,000 healthcare professionals polled, the nominations for the 2015 PharmaTimes Sales Awards, the only customer-nominated and customer-assessed competition of its kind, are now in.

Sanofi has confirmed that Bayer healthcare boss Olivier Brandicourt is to be its new chief executive, filling the void created by the sacking of Chris Viehbacher in October.

Cost regulators for the National Health Service in England and Wales are recommending Allergan’s eye implant Ozurdex (dexamethasone) as an option to treat diabetic macular oedema.

The US Food and Drug Administration has granted a priority review for Roche’s cobimetinib in combination with the company’s already-marketed melanoma drug Zelboraf.

This year’s The Creative Floor Awards are expected to be more brutal than last year’s, the founder has told PharmaTimes Digital.

The World Health Organisation has urged affected countries to scale up their investment in tackling 17 neglected tropical diseases to improve the lives of more than 1.5 billion people.

The world’s leading research company in human viral challenge models, Retroscreen Virology has just announced it will be a gold sponsor at this year’s World Vaccine Congress.

Norgine’s hepatic encephalopathy therapy Targaxan will be available to patients in England and Wales following its approval by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

The NHS is paying too high a price for new medicines and the Cancer Drugs Fund represents particularly poor value.

Actavis says it will change its name to Allergan after the completion of its $66 billion acquisition of the Botox manufacturer.

AstraZeneca has managed to secure a temporary injunction stopping Actavis from distributing its generic version of the asthma drug Pulmicort Repsules, which was launched at the end of last week.

While the Cancer Drugs Fund has benefited more than 60,000 patients since it was established in 2010, it makes no sense. It was created as a buffer for politicians from both the health technology assessment carried out by NICE and from individual patient decisions. Prime Minister David Cameron pledged – as an election promise – that any patient could get any drug provided their consultant made the request, but times have changed. This clearly could never work in an era of dramatic super-inflation with little meaningful survival benefit.

Celgene has been boosted by the news that the US Food and Drug Administration has expanded approval on its multiple myeloma blockbuster Revlimid to include newly-diagnosed patients.

Ferring Pharmaceuticals has acquired the assets of the USA’s BioSurface Engineering Technologies (BioSET), including two Phase III-ready ‘orthobiologics’ designed to improve bone repair.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has caused a stir with its proposed measures to tackle antibiotic resistance, which include setting up “antimicrobial stewardship teams” to keep a closer watch on local prescribing.