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Health Care Fraud and the "Most Wanted" List
Medicare and Medicaid scams cost taxpayers more than $60 billion a year. The government wants the public's help in trying to catch more than 170 fugitives wanted for fraud so it has developed a new healthcare "most-wanted" list with its own website - http://www.oig.hhs.gov.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/05/AR2011020500623.html
Lilly's Top Executive Compensation Drops 21% to $16.5 Million
The top executive of Eli Lilly and Co. saw his total compensation last year fall by 21 percent, to $16.5 million; this decline has been attributed to accounting adjustments and said his actual pay package remained flat.
Without adjustment the past two years, John C. Lechleiter's salary, target stock awards, and cash incentive bonus would have been $11.1 million, the same effective amount as in 2009. At his request, Lechleiter received no raise in salary or bonus last year and will not get either of those increases this year, the company said.
http://pharmalive.com/news/index.cfm?articleID=759726&categoryid=9&newsletter=1
Was a $60 Million Incentive Package for Pfizer Worth It?
Ten years ago, Pfizer Inc.'s corporate campuses in New London and Groton stood as highly visible symbols of job growth in the lucrative drug industry. Public agencies were eager to throw money at Pfizer to make sure it wouldn't leave. The taxpayers' tab was more than $60 million in grants and other incentives.
New York-based Pfizer met and exceeded the job-creation goals tied to some of those incentives as its ranks swelled to 6,500 in Connecticut. But the gains were short-lived. Pfizer said it would lay off 1,100 people in Groton over the next 18 months and transfer hundreds of coveted, high-paying drug research jobs to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
These deep-job cuts come less than a year after Pfizer said it would close its New London drug research headquarters, where much of the state and local aid was used. Also, the number will fall below the company's payroll in the late-'90s, when the incentives began.
http://pharmalive.com/news/index.cfm?articleID=759712&categoryid=9&newsletter=1
India Gains When Patents Expire
Whenever a blockbuster drug goes off patent, the pharmaceutical industry in India benefits. According to U.S.-based market research firm IMS Health, revenue at Indian generics companies has increased in each of the last 10 years; the total pharmaceutical market in India grew by 19% in 2009, topping out at $10.3 billion.
http://www.pharmaquality.com/
American Regent Injectable Products: Recall - Visible Particulates in Products
Recalls of Sodium Thiosulfate Injection USP 10% and Potassium Phosphates Injection USP have been initiated because some vials exhibit translucent visible particles consistent with glass delamination. Potential adverse events after intravenous administration include damage to blood vessels in the lung, localized swelling, and granuloma formation.
Glass delamination can occur with high pH solutions when the surface glass from the vial separates into thin layers, resulting in glass particles with a flaky appearance.
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/SafetyInformation/
SafetyAlertsforHumanMedicalProducts/ucm242365.htm
Drug Shortage May Be Worst in 30 Years
Hospitals have trouble getting common, critical medications for surgery, cancer care, and in other areas of medical care. Information on shortages is also available from the ASHP website: http://www.ashp.org/DrugShortages/Current/ . They recorded 211 new drug shortages in 2010, up from 70 shortages in 2006 and 166 in 2009. In addition, there were at least 30 unresolved shortages that occurred prior to 2010.
Some believe current shortages are virtually unprecedented. The most common shortages are generic injectables: including some very common drugs such as propofol, epinephrine, heparin, morphine, antibiotics, and chemotherapeutic agents.
http://www.hhnmag.com/hhnmag_app/jsp/articledisplay.jsp?dcrpath=HHNMAG%2F
Article%2Fdata%2F02FEB2011%2F0211HHN_FEA_pharmaceuticals&domain=HHNMAG
"Black Box" Drug Warning Labels Applied Inconsistently
Safety labels that outline concerns about medications, known as "black box warnings," are not always consistent within drug categories, a new study suggests. The research team published their report in the current issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
The investigators examined 20 different drug classes and covered 176 medications, all chosen from data included in the USA's "Top 200 Drugs for 2008 by Sales" report. Half of the 20 drug classes had at least a single black box warning issued; the other half had no such warnings.
Black box warning inconsistencies were found in nine drug classes, with 15 specific warnings not uniformly evident on the labeling of all drugs that fell within each specific class. In two-thirds of these (10 of the 15), the information was, in fact, noted on the labels in a different place, as either a simple warning or plain text. The rest did not include the warnings anywhere on the label.
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/649553.html
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