Analysis & Opinion 2010

• Branded meds post biggest price hike in years
  The economy may be in a down cycle, but branded drug prices are up--way up, according to an annual AARP survey. Prices for the AARP's 217 selected drugs that are commonly used by older Americans increased an average of 8.3 percent in 2009.
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• U.S. biotech faces fierce international competition
  Scientific American recently selected the top five countries in the world for their ability to foster biotechnology based on a few key criteria, and the results may surprise you.
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• EU Generic Applications Down in 2010
  Recent figures published by EMA relating to centralized procedure activities for human medicines appear to show a marked slowdown in the number of generic-drug applications filed and finalized this year to date (9 and 12, respectively).
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• Which biotechs are the least efficient?
  SmartTrend has looked at the biotech industry to determine which companies are the least efficient.
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• Analysis: U.S. flu plan cuts red tape, rewards biotechs
  The U.S. government released a new plan on Thursday for cutting red tape and working more closely with companies to prepare for the next big biological disaster -- be it a flu pandemic or nuclear attack.
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• Drug recalls surge
  Recalls of prescription and over the counter drugs are surging, raising questions about the quality of drug manufacturing in the United States.
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• Pharma contractors hiring fastest in sector
  Who's hiring in the drug business? Pharma services and outsourcing firms are hiring. And as Big Pharma shrinks workforces around the world, it's increasingly turning to contractors to handle some jobs previously performed by employees.
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• Will new PhRMA chief turn right?
  What will the new PhRMA look like? A Wall Street Journal article asks this question, suggesting that the industry lobby may turn sharply toward the Republican party now that the outspoken ex-Rep.
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• Report: China readies $1.5B plan to bolster biotech
  In a bid to break out of its dependence on manufacturing and cheap labor, the Chinese government is planning to invest $1.5 billion into new drug development between 2011 and 2016. And biotechnology is one of seven emerging industries that the Asian powerhouse will use to spearhead the next big step in its economic development, according to a report in China's 21st Century Business Herald.
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• Merck predicts $300M hit on Euro sales
  Merck has joined the troop of drugmakers expecting a big sales hit in Europe during the second half of this year. A $300 million hit, to be exact.
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• EU drug prices face deepening austerity squeeze
  A squeeze on European drug prices is set to accelerate in coming quarters as cash-strapped governments push through austerity measures designed to rein in runaway healthcare spending.
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• DEALTALK-Milestone payments help bridge valuation gap
   When biotechnology company Celgene Corp (CELG.O) agreed to buy Abraxis BioScience Inc (ABII.O) for $2.9 billion, it set aside $650 million in "milestone payments" if key drug Abraxane meets certain development goals -- a carrot held out to encourage the success of the merger.
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• Ireland mulls $6B R&D center
  Irish media outlets are reporting that plans are in the works for a massive pharmaceutical "center of excellence" in Tralee in County Kerry.
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• FACTBOX-Gilead dominates HIV/AIDS drugs market
  About two dozen different drugs are approved to fight the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. They are used in so-called cocktails to attack the virus from several different directions.
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• SAFC outlines Asia strategy; plans to expand manufacturing footprint
  The rapidly evolving Asian drug manufacturing sector represents both an opportunity and a challenge for the fine chemicals and molecules industry, according to SAFC president Gilles Cottier.
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• Microbial cells offer untapped nanotech potential
  The potential of microbial cells as producers of nanomaterials has been underestimated and further research is needed to improve the situation, according to an academic. Nanotechnology, and its applicability to pharma, is an area of interest to researchers. However, Antonio Villaverde, from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, writes in the journal Microbial Cell Factories that research into one area of nanomaterial production needs to increase.
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• Data shows declining productivity in drug R&D
  Drugmakers still rely heavily on sales from an ageing portfolio of products and the proportion of sales from newer medicines actually fell last year, after a decade of record research spending yielded few new winners.
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• Big Pharma Relying On Old Lines Of Drugs, Report Says
  There is fresh evidence of the dwindling pipeline of new drugs from the pharmaceuticals industry in research today showing just 7% of sales come from medicines launched in the past five years.
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• Takeda U.S. exec paid more than CEO
  In a vivid illustration of an overseas divide on executive pay, Takeda Pharmaceutical pays its American chief of international sales more than twice as much as it pays its Japan-based CEO.
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• GSK chief backs a centralized European approval process
  With European countries slamming the brakes on drug spending whenever possible, GSK chief Andrew Witty took the helm of the continent's pharma association calling for a "new dialogue" between the industry and government officials and cautiously backing a radical revamp of the European approval process.
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• Europe's drugmakers beat U.S. on access for poor
  European drugmakers still outrank their U.S. counterparts in making medicines available to poor people, but the lead they established two years ago is starting to shrink, according an analysis published on Monday.
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• ANALYSIS-Global pharma eyes Russia riches with local presence
  Global drugmakers are set to pour over a billion dollars into Russian manufacturing in a bid to win the status of local producers and sidestep a tougher government stance on imported medicines.
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• Has pharma outgrown the scientist CEO?
  Is the era of the scientist-CEO over in Big Pharma? The Financial Times suggests it's so. And to hear the experts tell it, there's a reason for that.
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• Study: U.S. at Risk of Losing Global Lead in Medical Innovation
  The United States is quickly losing ground as the global leader in medical innovation and must pursue coordinated action at the highest levels of government to ensure U.S. competitiveness, create high-paying jobs and find cures to costly and life-threatening diseases, according to a new study prepared by Battelle.
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• Global biotech firms seek partnerships in India for bigger gains
  The global biotechnology industry is moving towards strategic partnerships in a bid to create faster and cost-efficient means of drug discovery.
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• Indian biotech sector rebounds on global recovery
  Riding the global recovery, India's biotech industry bounced to high growth in fiscal 2009-10 to post revenues of $4 billion (Rs. 18,500 crore, a whopping 52 per cent over the previous fiscal).
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• UPDATE 1-Roche maintains focus as industry faces cutbacks
  Europe's economic jitters will clean out the health-science industry, leaving global generic as well as innovative drugmakers among the survivors, the head of Swiss drugmaker Roche (ROG.VX) predicted on Wednesday.
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• Charles River: China offers "cheaper, better educated" labor
  Charles River Laboratories' $1.6 billion acquisition of China's WuXi PharmaTech positions the preclinical specialist to expand its contract work in drug discovery at a time that Big Pharma companies are consolidating and farming out a larger portion of their early-stage research work.
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• Are emerging markets enough to boost Big Pharma?
  Can pharma's emerging-markets growth strategy really work? The Wall Street Journal raises this question in a column today, suggesting that low margins in developing countries, plus the fragmented nature what we consider "emerging markets," could interfere with drugmakers' success at offsetting generic competition in the U.S. and Europe.
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• UK coalition govt could end free drug pricing
  Britain's position as one of the few markets in the world where drug companies are free to set prices for their medicines could be under fire from the country's new coalition government. By Ben Hirschler
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• Counterfeit drugs on rise, pose global threat--WHO
  Production and sale of counterfeit drugs is on the rise in rich and poor countries, with more unwary consumers buying them over the Internet, experts warned on Wednesday.
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• UPDATE 1-Prescription drug use by US children on the rise
  Children were the leading growth demographic for the pharmaceutical industry in 2009, with the increase of prescription drug use among youngsters nearly four times higher than in the overall population, according to a report by Medco Health Solutions Inc (MHS.N).
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• Novo Nordisk a star amid stodgy pharmaceuticals
  The large-cap pharmaceuticals like Pfizer, Merck and GlaxoSmithKline have gone backwards this year, with the industry beset by the familiar worries over copycat competition, paltry pipelines of new drugs and price pressures across the globe. By Steve Goldstein
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• M&A Activity In Pharma And Biotech Sectors Set To Rise - Study
  The looming patent cliff facing major pharmaceutical companies is pushing the industry into a critical phase in terms of drug innovation and consolidation, international intellectual property group Marks & Clerk reported Monday.
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• Spain Cuts Prices On Some Patented Medicines
  Seeking to avoid a financial crisis, Spain is cutting the prices of numerous drugs, including many that have already been patented for up to 10 years, in hopes of reducing what the public health system spends on prescription drugs by as much as 23 percent, Europa Press reports.
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• Post-reform pharma should follow the money
  What's pharma's best bet in the post-healthcare reform world? Avoiding the government. No, that's not like running from the police. It's more like luxury marketing: Targeting your business toward the customers who can pay the most for it.
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• Is the market for biotech start-ups coming back to life?
  It's spring, and there's renewed hope in the deal-making community that for a select few venture-backed companies IPOs and buyouts are coming back into fashion.
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• Pharma pay beats private-sector wages
  Are you above average? Well, a new survey from Battelle, presented this week at BIO, may not be able to gauge your individual worth. But it can tell you whether you're making as much moola as the average pharma worker.
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• UK biotech groups merge into 'supercluster' powerhouse
  Two regional biotech networks in the UK have agreed to join forces and create the continent's leading supercluster of drug developers.
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• Analysts worry about U.S. reforms' real costs
  One common thread has been running through pharma's latest round of earnings reports: costs associated with healthcare reform. Every pharma analyst worthy of the label has trotted out various theories about how much the legislation will hit pharma results over the next couple of years--and long term, too.
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• EU drugmakers absorb reform; Bristol sees small hit
  AstraZeneca and Sanofi-Aventis do not expect U.S. healthcare reform to derail 2010 earnings forecasts, showing how European firms are escaping relatively unscathed compared with U.S. rivals.
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• Drugmakers lose fight over cheap UK medicines
  Drug companies have lost a legal battle against schemes promoted by Britain's state health service that encourage doctors to prescribe cheaper medicines. By Ben Hirschler
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• Global drug sales to top $1 trillion
  Global pharmaceutical sales are expected to reach $1.1 trillion (717 billion pounds) in 2014 as growth in emerging markets helps offset the impact of generic competition for many of the world's top selling drugs, according to a forecast by IMS Health.
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• Pharma Debt Is Outstripping Growth In Cash
  Is this surprising? Probably not. A new report from Moody’s makes clear the industry’s strong credit profile is at risk.
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• Comparative effectiveness money inspires hiring, dealmaking
  The stimulus bill funding for comparative effectiveness research is already making its way onto the streets, backing new studies and spawning a series of related acquisitions, Bloomberg reports.
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• Roche: Still looking for deals in 2010
  Roche intends to keep up its licensing pace even after its massive buyout of Genentech last year, which included gaining access to 16 Phase I or II programs the big Biotech had in its pipeline.
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• FACTBOX-World's top-selling drugs in 2014 vs 2010
  Roche's (ROG.VX) cancer drug Avastin is expected to be the world's biggest-selling drug in 2014, as today's two top blockbusters -- Lipitor and Plavix -- lose patent protection in 2011 and 2012.
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• Merck KGaA: Millipore buy 'worth every euro'
  Merck KGaA's $6 billion purchase of Massachusetts-based biotechnology equipment supplier Millipore is "worth every euro," CEO Karl-Ludwig Kley told shareholders at his company's annual general meeting today.
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• Pharma layoffs plunge to just 308 in March
  In a major turn-around from January and February, the pharmaceutical industry announced just 308 job cuts in March, falling to second place behind government for the most layoffs last month.
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• Germany to cut $2.7B from pharma spending
  While U.S. lawmakers wrapped up voting on healthcare reform, Germany's government was working on a little reform of its own. The coalition government agreed on new rules that will cut as much as 2 billion euros, or $2.7 billion, from pharma spending.
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• Lilly CEO Calls for Shift in Thinking on Health Reform
  In an address to the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany today, John C. Lechleiter, Ph.D., chairman, president and chief executive officer of Eli Lilly and Company, said that innovation holds the key to solving one of healthcare's thorniest dilemmas: how to improve quality and access while controlling costs.
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• Mixed Outlook for Pharmaceutical Industry following US Healthcare Reform
  Tijana Ignjatovic, strategic healthcare analyst at Datamonitor, believes that the House of Representatives passing the biggest reform of health care in the country for 40 years is a double-edged sword for the pharmaceutical industry.
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• Is Pfizer better off without Ratiopharm?
  Losing Ratiopharm to Teva Pharmaceutical Industries may have made Pfizer a winner. That's the theory advanced by Motley Fool, which says that to outbid Teva, Pfizer would have had to overpay. And overpaying, as anyone knows, is losing.
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• PhRMA Statement on Health Care Reform
  The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) issued the following statement today on passage of comprehensive health care reform and accompanying reconciliation legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives:
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• IMS Announces 17 Countries Now Rank as High-Growth ‘Pharmerging' Markets; Forecast to Contribute Nearly Half of Industry Growth by 2013
  IMS Health today announced that 17 high-growth pharmaceutical markets are now ranked as "pharmerging," up from seven currently, reflecting an unprecedented shift of industry growth to the world's emerging economies.
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• The scramble to save PhRMA's $80B deal
  An honest-to-goodness vote on healthcare reform is getting closer, and you can bet that pharma and its advocates are working double-time behind the scenes.
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• Planned Job Cuts Drop 41%; 16% for Pharma Industry
  Monthly job cuts fell in February to the lowest level since 2006, as companies announced plans to reduce payrolls by only 42,090, according to the latest job-cut report released March 3 by global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
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• Germany mulls forced discounts, price freeze
  The biggest European pharma market might get tougher. That's because Germany's health minister is so worried about the rising cost of drugs that he's considering compulsory discounts and price freezes, according to an internal ministry document obtained by Reuters.
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• Will Andreotti Merge Bristol-Myers Squibb?
  For the past couple of years, Wall Street was periodically filled with speculation that Bristol-Myers Squibb would look to merge.
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• U.K. calls summit over medicines shortages
  You all know pharma's problems with what Europe calls "parallel exports." Either way, the purchase of drugs in one low-cost country for resale in a higher-priced market cuts into pharma profits and messes with the supply-and-demand balancing act.
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• Trends Reveal Shifts in the Pharmacy Profession Toward More Patient Care
  Results released today from the Pharmacy Manpower Project's 2009 National Pharmacist Workforce Survey indicate shifts in the pharmacy profession toward more patient care.
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• Obama takes new tack on healthcare reform
  The healthcare reform debate is heating up again as that bipartisan summit meeting of President Obama's nears. And it looks as if the president is using that old "iron fist in a velvet glove" strategy.
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• Pharmaceutical companies seek biotech acquisitions to boost drug pipelines
  PHARMACEUTICAL FIRMS are scrambling to enlarge their drug pipelines as blockbuster drugs lose patent protection. Acquiring biotechnology companies is an attractive route.
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• Pharma giants collaborate in risk-sharing strategy
  THE ROAD to developing a blockbuster drug is fraught with uncertainty.
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• Senate provision could benefit biotech industry
  As the tough economy forces biotechs to halt projects or declare bankruptcy, the industry is looking to a provision in the Senate's version of the healthcare reform bill to keep research going.
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• FTC Wants More Staff To Tackle Biopharma Mergers
  In response to recent merger activity, the agency is seeking a budget of $314 million, which amounts to a 22 percent increase, in fiscal year 2011.
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• For tough 2010, pharma cuts billions from R&D
  Over the last week or so, we've seen three Big Pharmas announce big changes to their research operations--and those big changes include big job cuts. Big cost savings, too, the companies say.
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• Is there a sunny side to pharma layoffs?
  The persistent job cuts in Big Pharma have some people looking for the bright side. Yes, thousands of employees are set to lose their paychecks.
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• Top 10 biopharma deals of 2009
  If there was a hot trend for 2009 biopharma buyouts, it was the mega-merger. Usually a rare animal, three of the industry's biggest players--Wyeth, Genentech and Schering-Plough--were swept off the map in the first quarter of 2009, as Pfizer, Roche and Merck absorbed them into the fold.
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• Is biotech becoming another Big Pharma?
  The Wall Street Journal takes a close look at the maturation of the biotech industry, from the heady days of the early 2000s when it seemed the sky was the limit, to the return of reality as stock prices dropped and established biotechs began to wrestle with many of the problems once reserved for Big Pharma.
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• Indian bio-pharma industry accounts for 65% of the biotech sector
  Indian bio-pharma industry is valued at Rs 7,883 crore and is registering 14.25 per cent annual growth. The sector accounts for 65 per cent of the total biotech sector which is valued at Rs 12, 137 crore, according to the Association of Biotechnology Led Entrepreneurs and Biospectrum survey.
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• What will pharma do now on health reform?
  It's that old you-never-miss-it-till-it's-gone story: Now that the Democrats have lost Sen.
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• Pharma cuts in early in-house R&D is clever move – analysts
  Analysts at Morgan Stanley have issued a major report on the state of the pharmaceutical industry, saying the sector still provides significant value for investors as drugmakers are getting to grips with the challenges they face.
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• Indian biotech exec predicts a $10B industry boom
  One of the leading figures in India's biotech industry says that the field is positioned to more than double in size over the next five years as more companies in the subcontinent tap in on the potential for opportunities in clinical trials, manufacturing and more.
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• Pharma may lose another $10B to reform
  Lawmakers are coming back to the pharma well. In an attempt to finance changes in the healthcare reform package, congressional leaders say they're considering an additional $10 billion in cuts to industry payments and/or new industry fees.
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• ANALYSIS - Risk still a red flag for biotech deals
  Big pharmaceutical companies want to secure new products as blockbuster drugs lose patent protection, but their limited appetite for risk may slow the pace of dealmaking.
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• Antitrust: Commission launches monitoring of patent settlements concluded between pharmaceutical companies
  The European Commission can confirm that on 12 January 2010, on the basis of EU antitrust rules, it addressed requests for information to certain pharmaceutical companies asking them to submit copies of their patent settlement agreements.
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• Ranbaxy sells China JV and changes strategy
  Ranbaxy Laboratories has sold its Chinese JV, Ranbaxy Guangzhou China Limited (RGCL), as part of a new approach to the country’s rapidly expanding drug market.
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• Next step towards generics, Pfizer teams with Strides
  Pfizer will soon sell more generic pharmaceuticals in the US after its agreement with Indian non-branded drugmaker Strides Arcolab.
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