By Christopher Robertson Today, there are two big stories that relate to the “institutional corruption” of medicine (aka conflicts of interests). For those who have been working long and hard on these issues, they are cause for hope. The needle does move. First, one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies, GlaxoSmithKline, has decided that it will stop…
By Christopher Robertson So reads the cover of the MIT Technology Review this month. The article is available for free online. The article begins with the story of Kalydeco, which is priced at $294,000 per year. The company also pledged to provide it free to any patient in the United States who is uninsured or…
Please join us for our second annual Health Law Year in P/Review event, co-sponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School and the New England Journal of Medicine. The conference will be held in Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East C at Harvard Law School on Friday, January 31, 2014, from 8:30am to 5:00pm. This…
By The Petrie-Flom Center On November 21, the Petrie-Flom Center hosted a lecture by Neil Flanzraich on responsible pricing strategy, access to care, clinical trial design, outsourcing, and other topics that raise thorny but crucial issues for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. (You can read a summary of the lecture here.) You can now view the lecture online.…
By Kate Greenwood Cross-Posted at Health Reform Watch At Regulatory Focus earlier this week, Alexander Gaffney wrote about what he characterized as “a torrent of studies” that FDA is conducting or has proposed conducting on prescription drug promotion, and, in particular, on direct-to-consumer advertisements. The studies include, among others, a survey study aimed at sussing out “the influence of DTC advertising in…
By Kate Greenwood Cross-Posted at Health Reform Watch At the end of last month, the Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius made headlines when, in a letter addressed to Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA), she announced that “[qualified health plans], other programs related to the Federally-facilitated Marketplace, and other programs under Title I of…
By The Petrie-Flom Center This afternoon, the Petrie-Flom Center welcomed Neil Flanzraich for a lunchtime talk on responsibility and integrity in the pharmaceutical industry. Mr. Flanzraich is the Chairman and CEO of Cantex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Executive Chairman of Kirax Corporation. He was previously Vice Chairman and President of Ivax Corporation, Chairman of North American…
By Nicholson Price Antibiotics are a crucial aspect of modern medicine, and this fall has been filled with a number of hugely troubling reports about how we’re moving closer to an era where we can no longer take them for granted. About a month ago, the associate director of the CDC told PBS in an…
By The Petrie-Flom Center Please join the Petrie-Flom Center for a lecture by Neil Flanzraich on responsible pricing strategy, access to care, clinical trial design, outsourcing, and other topics that raise thorny but crucial issues for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. There will be substantial time for Q&A. Mr. Flanzraich graduated from HLS in 1968, and was appointed…
By Christopher Robertson The new American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology guidelines on how patients should manage their cholesterol are likely to dramatically increase the sales of statins. (E.g., check out the bump to Pfizer’s stock price.) Yet, the new guidelines have become instantly controversial, with prominent cardiologists calling them into doubt. In addition to…
