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Consumer publications have devoted significant space and attention to hepatitis C, also known as HCV, for the past several months. Although it's tempting to attribute that buzz to actress Pamela Anderson's public declaration that she contracted the condition from her ex-husband, MÖtley CrÜe guitarist Tom-my Lee, the truth is that pharma companies and government organizations were active in that disease area before 1997, when the National Institute of Health (NIH) held its first consensus conference o­n the topic.

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Geneva-The pharma industry has given a guarded welcome to a World Health Organization report that explicitly links poverty and poor health. The report comes from the Commission o­n Macroeconomics and Health (CMH), which was set up by WHO secretary-general Gro Brundtland two years ago. It says eight million lives a year could be saved if rich countries gave 0.1 percent of their gross national product (GNP) to health services for poorer countries and if poorer countries increased health spending by 1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2007. The economic benefits of that spend would be more than $360 billion a year from 2015 to 2020.

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Who calls the shots within pharmacy and therapeutics (P&T) committees? A recent survey of P&T committee members published in the September issue of Formulary, shows that o­nly a few key players do. Eighty percent of respondents said that pharmacy/formulary directors in hospital and managed care settings have the most influence in the decision making process, followed by staff/participating physicians, medical directors, and clinical pharmacy specialists, in varying order, depending o­n the setting.

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Think back: When did you first hear the phrase metabolic syndrome? When did it start to become part of your business and its plans? Maybe that second step hasn't taken place yet. But for many in pharma it's coming soon. In the past few years, scientists, researchers, and healthcare companies have been paying increasing attention to the concept that obesity, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, and hypertension-and perhaps other diseases, including some cancers-are linked.

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Fifty-three percent of patients visiting the doctor in 2001 were over age 45, compared with 42% in 1992, according to the latest annual report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, which looks at the medical care provided in physicians' offices. The number of people over age 45 rose 11% during the past decade; however, doctor visits by that age group increased 26% during the same time period. According to the CDC, this is because seniors and older baby boomers are visiting the doctor more often to manage multiple chronic conditions, obtain newly available drugs and seek preventive care.

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The 13th annual conference of the National Task Force o­n Continuing Medical Education Provider/Industry Collaboration, held in Baltimore, Maryland in early September, offered a balanced discussion of the challenges facing CME and helped broker a dialogue among all stakeholders-including representatives of industry, accrediting institutions, academia, and government-with an optimism missing from previous conferences.

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As president of inChord's New York branding company Y, Vince Parry wants pharma marketers to understand that advertising metrics aren't the best measures of a brand's vitality-its influence o­n customers. He says companies should take a lesson from the and evaluate brand vitality by researching how the community perceives and uses products and not just by measuring the recall value of their imagery.

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This year's BIO CEO & Investor Conference 2002, held at New York's Waldorf=Astoria in February, drew more than 16,000 analysts, pharma and biotech executives, and financial media, its largest audience to date. Company presentations, break-out sessions, panel discussions, and CEO roundtables addressed hot industry topics including Big Pharma's changing view of biotech and its trend toward finding and licensing late-stage products.

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Is there a formula for the perfect biotech or pharmaceutical executive? As a candidate to be the next CEO of Pfizer or Amgen, it is better to have a PhD in microbiology or an MBA combined with a medical degree? Does a lifetime in the lab beat out a decade of sales and marketing experience? To answer these questions, Harvard Business School analyzed 20 senior executives, two from each of the top five US pharma companies and the top five US biotechs. In most cases, those surveyed were CEOs or vice-presidents of commercial operations. For full article Click Here

Sodertalje, Sweden-After two consecutive years of robust postmerger growth, AstraZeneca is facing a tough 2001. The company recorded a 16 percent increase in pretax profits for 2000, but CEO Tom McKillop advises that this year’s growth will be in the 5–6 percent range when Losec/Prilosec (omeprazole)-the world’s best-selling medicine-goes off patent and the US launch of its successor Nexium (esomeprazole) is delayed.

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