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The generic drug industry didn’t exist until the passage of the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984 (Hatch-Waxman Amendments). This piece of legislation, better known in the pharmaceutical industry as the Hatch-Waxman Act, was proposed and adopted by the US Congress because [...]
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Mark Senak, author of the EyeonFDA blog and “all around good guy,” has created a Twitter list that follows the tweets of all of the pharmaceutical companies that use Twitter. Because the list of companies using Twitter is so small, it is a convenient aggregation tool [...]
Mark Senak, author of the EyeonFDA blog and “all around good guy,” has created a Twitter list that follows the tweets of all of the pharmaceutical companies that use Twitter. Because the list of companies that are currently using Twitter is so small, it is a [...]
Jonathan Richman, author of the Dose of Digital Blog, got it exactly right in today’s post entitled “Patients WILL Have the Final Say on Pharma Social Media” He was spot on with his conclusion that while social media pundits and patient advocacy groups can push FDA to [...]
Merck & Co. Inc., and Avecia Investments Limited today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement by which Merck will acquire the biologics business of UK-based Avecia; a contract manufacturing organization with specific expertise in microbial-derived biologics. A Merck executive commented on the deal:
"At [...]
Over the past two years, I have been blogging about the progress of sequencing the giant panda genome. Well, for those of you who have been following the unfolding story, I want to let you know that the giant panda genome was published in the December 13, [...]
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Earlier this week, Mark Senak who writes the EyeonFDA blog, offered his insights and analysis of pharma’s relationship with Twitter. Today, he tackled YouTube and Pharma. While YouTube has been around a lot longer than Twitter, pharma’s use (with the exception of Johnson and Johnson, Sanofi-Aventis and [...]
I was chatting with a fellow medical writing colleague the other day and the topic of direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising came up. I suggested that DTC advertising is largely ineffectual but my colleague suggested otherwise. To prove his point, he sent me a fascinating article entitled “Direct-to-Consumer Advertising: An [...]
I was chatting with a fellow medical writing colleague the other day and the topic of direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising came up. I suggested that DTC advertising is largely ineffectual but my colleague suggested otherwise. To prove his point, he sent me a fascinating article entitled “Direct-to-Consumer Advertising: An [...]
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Mark Senak who writes the EyeonFDA blog has compiled a list of the life sciences companies that presently have a Twitter account and use it. While there are only 12 companies on the list, he provides a nice commentary on their use and makes some recommendations for [...]
Pfizer was the first to bring us ED (erectile dysfunction) and now two companies—one large (Johnson and Johnson) and one small (Sciele Pharma)—are daring to boldly go where no MAN has gone before: to conquer PE aka premature ejaculation!
According to a brilliantly-crafted story by Natasha Singer [...]
I think the economy must be improving because I am beginning to receive e-mail blasts from big pharma companies like Roche and AstraZeneca that they are hiring again (Please see the e-mail message below). This may be a good sign for R&D scientists who have been struggling to find gainful [...]
I realize that I have been blogging about adverse events for the past couple of day but, let’s face it; the pharmaceutical industry lives or dies by the number of adverse events (AEs) that are reported for approved and marketed drugs. In any event, I came upon [...]
Professor Vincent Racaniello, a BioCrowd co-founder, blogger and host of the increasingly popular This Week in Virology (TWIV) podcast series made an anguished plea in a recent post on his Virology Blog to help promote American science literacy. “If you are writing a book, article, [...]
A post on the Pharmalot blog today reports that spending on direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising came bounding back in the third quarter —rising 15 percent to $1.16 billion, according to DTC Perspectives (which cited data from TNS Media Intelligence).
The increased spending marks the first quarterly gain [...]
As a blogger I get on average 2-3 press releases per day from publicists who want me to pick up their releases and publish them on BioJobBlog. I usually pass. But, the one that I received from a publicist who represents eco-friendly and politically-correct Red Handed Bags was too good not [...]
Losing a job or getting laid off is without a doubt one of the more emotionally devastating events that most people face. Unfortunately, in these troubling financial times, many more people are likely to face this likelihood than any other time in recent history.
However, if you lose [...]
Much has been written about social media but who has time to ponder all the analytical data to come up with trends and cool statistics?
To that end, I was reading Dec/Jan edition of Forbes Small Business (FSB) magazine and I came upon some random social media tidbits [...]
Sanofi Aventis asked it entire sales force to remain at home the Monday after Thanksgiving to wait for a phone call to see whether or not they still had jobs. Nice way for the affected employees to spend Thanksgiving, eh?
Sanofi-Aventis is laying off an unspecified number of [...]
Mark Senak, social media advocate and author of the EyeonFDA blog, has been spot on with his commentary on the recent public hearings held by FDA to unravel the social media conundrum facing the life sciences industry. Despite its good intentions, the agency is intent on applying [...]
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Recruiting patients for human clinical trials has become challenging over the past five years or so. Inclusion criteria have become more stringent and cost of running Phase III clinical trials has skyrocketed. This has forced life sciences companies and clinical research organizations to be creative in recruiting patients. Traditional [...]
The public hearing held by FDA last week in Washington DC to address social media and promotional advertising in the pharmaceutical seems to have altered the agency’s perspective on all things digital. Today, according to a press release, marked the agency’s completion of a coordinated week long [...]
Talecris Biotherapeutics announced that it will add 259 jobs as part of a $269 million expansion of its manufacturing facility in Clayton, NC. The RTP-based biotech company already employs more than 3,000 people world wide (2000 in the Raleigh-Durham area and 1,500 in Clayton) and plans [...]
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I suspect that many of you (after reading the title of this post) might be expecting another rant about the need for new antibiotics to treat infections caused by multiple drug resistant strains of bacteria. Sorry to disappoint you because that isn’t what this post [...]
Much has been written about how supportive the pharmaceutical industry has been about US healthcare reform. Prior to the debate, the Obama administration gleefully announced that pharma will give $80 billion in drug discounts in exchange for certain assurances that weren’t publicly disclosed. As most of us know, the [...]
Flu season is upon us and, not surprisingly, there is no dearth of information available to the public about the seasonal and H1N1 flu vaccines. Mostly there are stories about the lack of availability of the vaccines, underreporting of deaths associated from H1N1 infections and perhaps, most importantly [...]
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Unlike many of my social media colleagues, I’m not attending the FDA public hearing taking place in Washington, D.C today (Friday the 13th oh my). I wanted to attend and actually testify but I didn’t understand how the process works and blew my opportunity. However, I will be [...]
For the past 10 years or so, I have been providing career counseling and development seminars and workshops for life scientists. In the early years, students, postdocs and a smattering of faculty members would attend to learn about the industry trends, the job market and more recently [...]
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After announcing yesterday that it will be reorganizing and closing 6 of 20 R&D sites worldwide, Pfizer/Wyeth announced today that as many as 2000 R&D scientists will lose their jobs. I suspect that others will lose their jobs in the next few months or [...]
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In today’s edition of the incisive EyeonFDA blog, Mark Senak, provides a historical perspective on events leading to the US Food and Drug Administration public hearing on the use of social media and medical promotion that will be held on Thursday and Friday, November 12 and [...]
Employees of Pfizer/Wyeth were notified earlier today of impending changes and consolidation that will be taking place at the newly combined company. According to internal sources, Cambridge, MA, Groton, CT and Pearl River, NY will be the main centers of the combined company’s East Coast operations and [...]
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I just returned from the 2009 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) that was held in Phoenix last week. I attended ABRCMS for the first time last year and decided that it was a meeting not to be missed in 2009. Once again the students (mainly [...]
Over the past year or so, more graduate students and postdoctoral fellows have been asking me about management consulting careers in the life sciences. I spent several years working as an independent management consultant and while it was a great experience the revenue stream was unreliable at [...]
I am attending the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) in sunny Phoenix, AZ where I will be providing career development guidance to undergraduate and graduate students. Ironically, given the dismal job prospects in the life sciences industry for entry level employees, I will be [...]
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As somebody who has been unemployed more than once, unemployment can be depressing, very frustrating and extremely worrisome. In addition to sending out resumes and networking, I highly recommend using the free time that you have at your disposal to learn new skills to either make your [...]
For the past month or so I have been working on a piece about chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) that is common among patients being treated for cancer. While not a pleasant topic, it is a reality for many patients who undergo cancer chemotherapy treatment. Although CINV [...]
I suspect by the growing numbers of people who read BioJobBlog, that some of you may be beginning to wonder who I am. While nobody has taken me to task about my credentials or musings to date, I figured it may be worthwhile to share my “story” [...]
It is amazing the things you learn if you pay attention from time to time. While attending a meeting on e-healthcare last week in Philadelphia I learned that according to the American public the pharmaceutical industry is less popular than the banking industry. This was startling to me [...]
There was an interesting article in the New York Times this past week entitled“Do Women Need Such Big Flu Shot.” The gist of the article was that we would have more doses of influenza 2009 H1N1 vaccine if we accounted for the biological differences between the immune [...]
The New York Times reported today that AstraZeneca has agreed to pay $520 million to settle two federal investigations and two whistle blower lawsuits over the sale, marketing and off-label promotion of its blockbuster antipsychotic drug Seroquel. Despite this settlement, UK-based AstraZeneca still must contend with [...]
I was sitting around minding my own business (well sort of) and I received the following e-mail message. People must be reading BioJobBlog or something!
In the middle of the worst national job market since the early 1980's, Roche Pharma Research in Nutley, New Jersey is hiring. Specifically, this' [...]
I received a call today from GDS International, a UK-based b2b publishing company, alerting me to its annual, event called the Next Generation Pharmaceutical Summit (NGP) currently taking place at the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island in FL. This invitation only event is supposed to bring [...]
For the past several weeks, the EyeonFDA blog has been reporting on the possible regulatory impact of Google’s Sidewiki on life sciences companies. For those of you who may not be familiar with Sidewiki (released in late September) it is a new feature of the Google toolbar which can [...]
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e-Patients Connections 2009 (#epatcon) was held this past Monday and Tuesday at the Park Hyatt hotel in Philadelphia, PA. BioCrowd was one of several co-sponsors of the event. The theme of the conference, organized by Kevin Kruse a veteran medical communication and training expert, who now [...]
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Cliff Mintz, BioCrowd co-founder and the mastermind behind BioJobBlog, is featured today in an online article at the Science Careers website entitled “Life After Rejection.” The piece was expertly crafted by Siri Carpenter, PhD a free lance science writer based in Madison, Wisconsin— [...]
Late last week, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved GlaxoSmithKline’s cervical cancer vaccine Cervarix for use in girls and women ages 10 to 25 and also approved Gardasil —Merck’s cervical cancer vaccine previously approved in 2006 for use in girls and women—for boys and [...]
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