Pharmaceutical Industry

Fifteen years ago, Harry and Louise were the voice of the health care industry opposed to health reform. Today, Harry and Louise have endorsed health care reform, and most of the health care industry is on board. And the pharmaceutical industry is now paying for advertisements promoting health reforms. What gives? Perhaps the industry has a canny ability to negotiate secret deals to protect its interests. We need to know the price we are paying. For example, the pharmaceutical industry appears to have negotiated a secret deal to provide $80 billion in alleged savings over the next 10 years.

Federal agents in Baltimore helped lead an operation that this week seized and shut down nearly 700 U.S.-based websites linked to the sale of counterfeit pharmaceutical drugs as part of an international effort to upend the global online drug trade. The local operation, known as Bitter Pill, was part of an international initiative led by Interpol that spanned 100 countries and confiscated 3.7 million doses of counterfeit medications worth an estimated $10.5 million, according to federal officials.

Press' painting accepted by art exhibition in Paris Linda Press, an adjunct faculty member at Howard Community College and a resident of Columbia, has been accepted by the Salon des Artistes Francais, an international exhibition to be held Nov. 8-17 at L'Espace Auteuil in Paris. Her oil painting, En Contraste, was selected for the show of work by 850 artists from five continents. President of firm speaks at educational seminar Susan Torroella, president of Medicalliance Inc., spoke to new members of the pharmaceutical industry at a Henry Stewart Co. educational seminar in Washington.

The Sun article regarding the U.S. Supreme Court and the pharmaceutical industry ("Drug industry tallies 2 high-court victories," June 24), reports how a decision of the court is "shielding the makers of generic drugs from most lawsuits filed by injured patients. " Something is wrong when the incomplete copy of a patented drug is treated better than the original. A patient injured by a generic drug needs some avenue for corrective action. Suing the manufacturer should at least be a patient's last recourse.

The Sun article regarding the U.S. Supreme Court and the pharmaceutical industry ("Drug industry tallies 2 high-court victories," June 24), reports how a decision of the court is "shielding the makers of generic drugs from most lawsuits filed by injured patients. " Something is wrong when the incomplete copy of a patented drug is treated better than the original. A patient injured by a generic drug needs some avenue for corrective action. Suing the manufacturer should at least be a patient's last recourse.

WASHINGTON -- The Senate, clearing the way for action on a major overhaul of the government's troubled drug safety system, has sidetracked a controversial amendment that would have let Americans buy medicines from foreign suppliers but threatened to stall action on the larger bill. The drug import measure, which was tacked onto the FDA overhaul, could have saved consumers billions of dollars, its sponsors said. But the pharmaceutical industry has argued that pharmacies risk being flooded with counterfeit drugs.

A health care advocacy group filed a complaint yesterday with the State Ethics Commission charging that the pharmaceutical industry violated Maryland law with a "deceptive" lobbying effort to defeat legislation before the General Assembly. The Maryland Citizens' Health Initiative Education Fund claims that representatives of the industry schemed to influence lawmakers on prescription drug legislation without registering as lobbyists. The complaint alleges that Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America (PhRMA)

WITH A SINGLE blow, Congress could curb the expense of Medicare and Medicaid, give public and private employers a break on health insurance for workers and grant the uninsured greater access to life-changing medicines. All the lawmakers have to do is put the interests of their constituents ahead of pharmaceutical industry profits by tackling the issue of scandalously high drug prices. It seems obvious at a time when the expense of health care is once again rising out of control that the federal government should end the sweet deal that allows the pharmaceutical industry to benefit from research and advertising subsidies as well as generous patent protections.

TO SEE WHY health costs are spiraling out of control, look in the medicine cabinet. Drug prices rise rapidly and unchecked, putting an increasingly unsustainable burden on health insurance. And how does the pharmaceutical industry spend a huge chunk of its profits? On hawking drugs to physicians and consumers in order to boost the use of expensive medicines, thus burdening the health insurance system even further. Over more than a dozen years of heated debate in Washington, drugmakers have steadfastly resisted all encroachments on their fat profit margins, warning of dire consequences.

JUST AS congressional support is building for lifting the ban on importing discount drugs from Canada comes word from north of the border that American buyers may be cut off. Politicians here say Canadian authorities are being muscled by the pharmaceutical industry, seeking to block discount products from competing in bulk with products it can often sell at full retail price in this country. That may well be, but piggybacking onto Canadian price controls was never more than a short-term solution for hefty pharmaceutical costs in the United States.

Columbia's W.R. Grace & Co. has agree to buy an Oregon-based chemical manufacturer for $19.2 million. The deal with Synthetech, announced late Monday, will allow Grace to expand its offerings to the pharmaceutical sector. Synthetech specializes in organic synthesis, biocatalysis and chiral technologies. The company, based in Albany, Ore., has 63 employees. The transaction has been approved by both companies' board of directors but is subject to approval by Synthetech shareholders and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Fifteen years ago, Harry and Louise were the voice of the health care industry opposed to health reform. Today, Harry and Louise have endorsed health care reform, and most of the health care industry is on board. And the pharmaceutical industry is now paying for advertisements promoting health reforms. What gives? Perhaps the industry has a canny ability to negotiate secret deals to protect its interests. We need to know the price we are paying. For example, the pharmaceutical industry appears to have negotiated a secret deal to provide $80 billion in alleged savings over the next 10 years.

WASHINGTON - -As a candidate for president, Barack Obama criticized drug companies and the influence they wield in Washington. He ran a TV ad targeting the industry's chief lobbyist, former Louisiana Rep. Billy Tauzin, and the role Tauzin played in preventing Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices. Since the election, Tauzin has morphed into the president's partner. He has been invited to the White House a half-dozen times in recent months. There, he says, he secured an agreement that the administration would not try to overturn the Medicare drug policy that Obama had criticized.

It's amazing what an hour of aimless channel surfing can turn up these days. After some freewheeling with the remote one night recently, I managed to catch not only half a dozen low-budget makeover shows but also three ads for FDA-approved pharmaceuticals: one for depression, another for premenstrual dysphoric disorder and a third for inadequate eyelash syndrome - sorry, "eyelash hypotrichosis." Prescription treatment for "longer, thicker and darker lashes?" Fellow Americans, have we lost our minds?

Charles Sumner Dawson, a pharmaceutical researcher and World War II veteran who lived most of his life in Baltimore County, died of heart failure Thursday. He was 87. Mr. Dawson was born in Scranton, Pa., the eldest of three children. His father, an executive for an electric company, died when Mr. Dawson was 5 years old, after a bout with the flu. His mother remarried a few years later. Mr. Dawson grew up in the western suburbs of Philadelphia, referred to as the "main line," and later graduated from Lower Merion High School.

WASHINGTON -- The Senate, clearing the way for action on a major overhaul of the government's troubled drug safety system, has sidetracked a controversial amendment that would have let Americans buy medicines from foreign suppliers but threatened to stall action on the larger bill. The drug import measure, which was tacked onto the FDA overhaul, could have saved consumers billions of dollars, its sponsors said. But the pharmaceutical industry has argued that pharmacies risk being flooded with counterfeit drugs.

NO QUESTION about it, Americans are suckers for pills. Pills to soothe their pains, pills to relax their brains. Pills to cure their blues, pills to take the load off their shoes. Pills to boost their energy to the ceiling; pills to bring back that lovin' feeling. Drugmakers are no dopes; they spent $4 billion last year in seductive advertisements praising the potential of their potions. They know the most profitable way to reach this ready market is directly, bypassing pesky physicians who might consider their medicine unnecessary or advocate a cheaper generic alternative.

Chesapeake Biological Laboratories Inc., a Baltimore-based biotechnology manufacturing contractor, named former pharmaceutical industry executive Thomas P. Rice as its president and chief executive officer yesterday.The company said Rice would replace John C. Weiss III, CBL's president since May 1996, who has resigned.William P. Tew, CBL's chairman of the board, said Rice, a member of the company's board of directors since 1997, will be a strong addition to the company's management team."He brings with him a wealth of knowledge and experience in the pharmaceutical industry, which will be a great asset to CBL as it continues its transition to a larger-scale commercial producer of sterile, injectable bio-pharmaceutical and pharmaceutical products," Tew said.

The warning to sausage-eaters, about not watching it be made, should also direct the gaze of other meat-eaters away from factory-style cattle, pig or poultry farms. Exposure to the cruel and cramped conditions in which the animals are kept as well as the poor quality of their feed might well upset lunch. But what's downright unconscionable is the use by farmers of powerful antibiotics, partly to combat the ill effects of the animals' living conditions. The practice poses the risk of negating the antibiotics' healing effects on humans.

Drug giant Pfizer Inc. said yesterday that it would lay off 10,000 workers and close several manufacturing and research sites in an effort to bolster earnings hurt by the loss of patent protection on certain drugs and setbacks in developing new products. The company said the employee reductions were equivalent to about 10 percent of its worldwide work force and would take place by the end of next year. Among the cuts would be a 20 percent reduction in its European sales force. That move would follow a similar reduction announced two months ago in the company's American sales force and is included in the 10,000 figure.