News

The NHS will get a new inspectorate and a legal duty of candour will be imposed on hospitals and potentially NHS staff, in tough new measures designed to stop another Mid Staffs from happening again.

Prices of widely-used prescription drugs vary across Ireland by as much as 199%, a new survey has revealed.

It seems that the majority of senior National Health Service staff remain seriously concerned that the Service is not geared up to cope with the new commissioning landscape. 

Patients in Wales are to get access to ViroPharma’s hereditary angioedema (HAE) drug Cinryze on the National Health Service following the seal of approval from the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group (AWMSG).

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has now published final draft guidance on the use of Roche’s Avastin in ovarian cancer, sticking with its previous decision to bar NHS patients ‘routine’ access to the drug on grounds that it does not offer value for money.

PatientsLikeMe, the US-based online platform for the exchange of health data, has gone global with the clinical-trial matching tool it launched in the network’s home market last year.

The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) has issued approvals for a batch of new drugs including Pfizer’s rheumatoid arthritis pill Xeljanz (tofacitinib citrate) and Bayer’s Stivarga (regorafenib) for advanced/recurrent colorectal cancer (CRC).

Shire has made its second acquisition in a month in the eye disease area with the purchase of the USA’s SARcode Bioscience.

Health informatics is set to be a major driver of success for UK life sciences, but the sector – and industry in particular – does not yet have the necessary analytical skills, according to leading experts.

Strategic changes and the recent launch of a Clinical Research Department have enabled Curie-Cancer to more than treble the number of Phase I studies it conducts with pharmaceutical companies, says the Paris-based body responsible for developing the industry partnership activities of France’s Institut Curie.

US-based contract research organisation WCCT Global is ramping up its early-phase efforts in the field of obesity to address a “continually mounting” epidemic fuelled by unhealthy lifestyles and diets.

Eisai has unveiled plans to establish a new sales and marketing operation in Russia.

GlaxoSmithKline has received a complete response letter from the US Food and Drug Administration for its pandemic influenza A vaccine, called Q-Pan H5N1, despite getting unanimous backing from one of the agency’s advisory panels last year.

AstraZeneca has entered into an agreement with Actavis and Egis Pharmaceuticals to settle US patent lawsuits concerning its cholesterol blockbuster Crestor.

The latest set of opinions from advisors to the European Medicines Agency has resulted in a pile of recommendations for approvals, notably for multiple sclerosis pills from Biogen Idec and Sanofi.