Category: Generics Dampen Cost Increases in Cancer Care

Yes, the price of treating cancer is rising steadily with the advent of expensive targeted drugs. But that rise has been checked, for now, by the arrival of generic versions of some widely used chemotherapy drugs.

The average annual drug cost per cancer patient was $13,113 as of Jan. 1 of this year, up from $6,490 […]

As Congress investigates the delay in the release of data from Merck and Schering-Plough’s now infamous Enhance trial of Vytorin, one of the key players is speaking up.
James Stein, a cardiologist at the University of Wisconsin, had reservations about the way the companies were characterizing a meeting of experts on the trial, which failed to […]

For all the health data sitting on computers in this country, our drug safety surveillance is remarkably primitive, relying on clinical trials (which capture a tiny percentage of those taking prescription drugs) and sporadic reports from doctors and drugmakers.
A deal being announced today could change that. The FDA will contract with WellPoint, the country’s biggest […]

Sales reps have been pounding doctors’ doors on behalf of Merck and Schering-Plough’s beleaguered cholesterol drug Vytorin, but their pleas aren’t getting them very far.
It’s been two months since the results of the controversial Enhance trial suggested Vytorin was no better than a cheap generic at slowing the progression of cardiovascular disease. The hullabaloo appears […]

Fifteen thousand med school students will find out tomorrow where they’re going to spend the next few years of their lives, working 80-hour weeks and learning the ins and outs of a medical specialty.
March 20th is Match Day, the day when a great big computer spits out a long list matching graduating med students […]

Is it just us, or have toxins assumed a special place in the media-driven world of sensationalized fears? Ricin as a tool of assassination freaked us out, just after we’d gotten over the more prosaic threat of lead in toys.
Every week, it seems, there’s some new toxic threat to be concerned about. And the […]

The feds have indicted a former biotech CEO, arguing that he committed criminal acts when he promoted a drug for uses that hadn’t been approved by the FDA. It’s common enough for the government to come down on a company for off-label marketing, sometimes even naming individuals. But it’s pretty unusual for the investigation to […]

Pharmacists shouldn’t be forced to dispense the “morning-after pill,” a form of emergency contraception known as Plan B, lawyers argued yesterday in the Illinois Supreme Court, the Associated Press reports.
Plan B, sold by Barr Labs, is simply a high dose version of the same hormones used in birth control pills; it reduces the risk of […]

More details may are coming into focus on the contaminated blood thinner that has been linked to hundreds of serious problems and 19 deaths. Citing interviews with researchers in the U.S. and China, the New York Times reports that the contaminant was likely made in China from animal cartilage, chemically altered to act like heparin, […]

“We’re watching by land, and they’re coming by sea,” says James G. Sheehan, a former federal fraud prosecutor and now New York’s Medicaid inspector general. “The reality is, we’ve been doing [medical] provider fraud for a hundred years; we’ve been doing managed-care fraud for 10 years.”
As more Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries move into managed care, […]