NICE to lose powers to reject new drugs

The British government is expected to strip the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, or NICE, of its ability to reject new drugs. Currently, NICE “scrutinizes the cost and clinical benefits of new drugs to determine whether the state health-care system should pay for them,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “If NICE decides that a [...]

Cutting drug prices hampers innovation: study

Cutting pharmaceutical prices in the way European governments are doing now will severely reduce the number of new drugs making it to market.  There is a direct link between strict regulation and low innovation in the sector, according to a study by a Berlin-based European School of Management and Technology Competition Analysis (EMST CA) and [...]

Why innovation is sometimes just as important as invention for pharmaceutical patents

An interesting article on incremental innovation, invention, access to medicines and IP — from Global Health Progress. The Asian Age recently discussed the dilemma around the language of the Indian Patents Act, which requires “significant” improvements or efficacy in existing medicines for them to become eligible for pharmaceutical patents.  Reporter Deepak Joshi discusses the role [...]

Italy cuts generic drug prices – to save 600 million euros

Italy is taking new steps to rein in healthcare spending by imposing a cut in generic drug prices – estimated to save the country 600 million euros ($733.8 million). Under a package of measures, the price of off-patent generic drugs will be cut by 12.5 percent from June 2010 until the end of this year.  [...]

Innovation, IP & India – commentary from the Indian pharmaceutical industry

Small innovations that build on existing knowledge are the true backbone and a specific strength of the pharma industry.

Canada’s provincial drug plans and drug rebates – negotiating savings or creating tiered healthcare?

Canada’s health care system has come under increasing scrutiny as the debate on health reform intensifies in the U.S.  The National Post recently published an interesting article on Canada’s provincial drug plans and recent changes that have allowed some of them to negotiate prices directly with drug companies in exchange for having their products listed.  [...]

Tiered Pricing Enables Health for All

PAHO must accept their share of the responsibility in ensuring health for all in the 21st century. Many Latin American countries are “rich” today compared to most African states and some of their sister “south” American nations. Middle income PAHO states cannot hold much of Africa or their own poorer member countries like Haiti hostage for the self-interests of their more powerful, richer rapidly developing countries.

PAHO’s vaccine system hampers African efforts

Efforts to make newer and more costly vaccines widely available to the poorest in Africa are being hampered by a long-standing system that makes vaccines affordable to middle-income Latin American countries, reports the Financial Times. The Pan American Health Organization’s (PAHO) revolving fund, which began in 1979, negotiates substantial discounts with manufacturers on prices in [...]

Counterfeits and drug resistance: the global concern of malaria

Many health experts are concerned that the growing resistance to artemisinin drugs in western Cambodia could result in a repeat of the fate of chloroquine, which became largely ineffective. Counterfeit drugs can contain insufficient amounts of active ingredient, failing to cure the disease parasite and allowing it to mutate and resist the drug.  With half [...]

Innovation in Drug Access

A recent article in Global Health Magazine (Big pharma bets on emerging economies) focuses on the increasing use of tiered pricing by pharmaceutical companies to remain competitive in the global economy.  “Such nuanced approaches to drug pricing that more closely reflect the ability to pay represent an attractive new trade-off for pharmaceutical companies: they provide [...]