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By Jonathan J. Darrow Questionable baldness remedies have been peddled since the beginning of medicine. According to Pliny (23-79 A.D.), ashes of seahorse could cure baldness. Almost 2000 years later, the British Medical Association warned…
By Jonathan J. Darrow In a well-researched, recent post, Patrick O’Leary addresses the FDA’s efficacy requirements as applied to an old drug, Acthar (corticotropin), that was first approved in 1952 and granted an orphan designation…
by Jonathan J. Darrow Until recently, most ordinary people had never heard of “pharmacy compounding.” Then, a number of deaths and illnesses caused by a drug that was compounded in a Framingham, Massachusetts pharmacy propelled…
by Jonathan J. Darrow On October 3, 2012, the FDA’s Division of Professional Drug Promotion issued an untitled letter to Genentech in connection with its cancer drug Tarceva. Tarceva (erlotinib) was approved in 2004 for…
by Jonathan J. Darrow In a Petrie-Flom Center event last month, Dr. Alan Wertheimer raised the question of why consent is needed in ethical research. Without commenting on his answer to the question (attendees were…
by Jonathan J. Darrow A research study reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine found that physicians are able to discriminate between clinical trials with high levels of rigor versus those with low…
by Jonathan J. Darrow The expiration of the patent on $11-billion-per-year Lipitor® (atorvastatin calcium) last November received wide media attention and was eagerly greeted by consumers, reflecting public excitement that seems to have not yet…
