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Drug Resellers Marking up Short-supply Medications 80-fold Being Probed
With the number of drug shortages tripling in the past five years, gray-market companies that buy up critical drugs in short supply and resell them to hospitals and pharmacies at a markup of as much as 80 times their price are under investigation.
Representative Elijah Cummings (Democrat, Maryland) has launched the investigation as the U.S. faces record drug shortages. Some hospitals have changed medical practices and in some cases, use less-effective medicines. Cummings said one reseller charged a hospital 80 times the typical price for cytarabine.
"Price gouging for drugs that treat cancer in children is simply unconscionable," said Cummings; "We want to know where these companies are getting these drugs, and how much they are making in profits."
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-05/drug-resellers-probed-by-lawmaker-for-80-fold-markup-on-scarce-medicines.html
FDA Okays Novel Gel to Curb Bleeding During Surgery
A gel called LeGoo that temporarily stops blood flow during surgery has been approved by the FDA. It is indicated for use in blood vessels (below the neck) that are 4 mm or less in diameter. It stops blood from filling a surgical area without causing damage to the vessel, which often happens when clamps or elastic loops are used.
LeGoo is a temperature sensitive product; it is liquid at room temperature and solid at a higher temperature. The gel plugs the vessel for up to 15 minutes, after which it dissolves. The formed plug can also be dissolved faster by cooling the vessel with an ice pack or cold saline.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/ProductAlert/DevicesandVaccines/28879
(Editor's Note: The website of the company is: http://www.pluromed.com/index.htm. It appears this is a Pluronic gel.)
PHARMA Spent $4.7M on Lobbying in Second Quarter 2011
PHARMA lobbied on implementation of aspects of the 2010 healthcare overhaul, including prices and rebates for drugs purchased through the Medicare program, strengthening Medicare anti-fraud measures, and eliminating an independent payment advisory board meant to hold down Medicare spending. The amount is an increase over the $4.65 million it spent a year earlier and the $4.54 million it spent in this year's first quarter.
PHARMA's efforts are on legislation that would bar the marketing of authorized generic drugs, which allow makers of brand-name drugs to partner with a generic company to retain more revenue after their patents expire. Also the target of their lobbying activities are reforms concerning patent lawsuits and on other patent rules, and for the protection of intellectual property in foreign countries.
http://news.yahoo.com/drug-industry-group-spent-4-7m-lobbying-2q-231944814.html
Last Tax Holiday Shows U.S. Firms Cut Thousands of Jobs
As many of the large corporations push for a tax holiday on more than one trillion dollars of overseas profits, a new survey has revealed that the last time such a measure was tried it ended in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs.
The group has employed over 160 lobbyists to push its agenda, claiming that the companies will use the tax break to bring back money overseas and invest it in building new facilities and creating jobs.
However, a report that studied the last time such a move was carried out, which was in 2004, allowed 843 firms to cut their tax rate on repatriating overseas profits from 35% to 5%. These firms brought home $312 billion dollars and avoided paying $92 billion dollars in government taxes in return for a promise to create jobs. The measure was called the American Job Creation Act.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/04/us-tax-holiday-job-cuts
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