Pharmaceutical Companies

Asthma sufferers have long relied on inhalers for relief from wheezing or coughing attacks. But as of Dec. 31, Primatene Mist -- the only available over-the-counter asthma inhaler -- was taken off shelves because of its adverse effect on the environment. Other inhalers are available, but these require a doctor's prescription. Some people with asthma aren't happy about the change, but lung doctors and asthma specialists agree that Primatene Mist wasn't the best option for patients anyway.

Voluntary guidelines for pharmaceutical companies will not wean the livestock industry off its addiction to antibiotics. Yet that's what the U.S. Food and Drug Administration - which has previously taken tentative steps to curb the agricultural use of antibiotics and is under a judge's order to carry out existing laws that call for limiting the overuse of two classes of antibiotics - is proposing. Obviously, the agency wants to avoid a protracted legal battle with producers, and its authority is limited by Congress' repeated refusal to act. But this latest plan falls far short of the decisive action needed to make a difference.

Congressional Democrats' intensifying efforts to pay for their healthcare overhaul and provide more relief for consumers are threatening to unravel a White House deal with the pharmaceutical industry and turn one of Washington's most powerful lobbies against the legislation. Drug makers, which have already spent $110 million lobbying Congress this year, are preparing to make a stand in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is working to unveil a healthcare bill this week.

The tiny south Florida pharmacy that built a profitable business blowing the whistle on drug companies that cheat the government has won a signal victory. A Texas jury on Tuesday ordered two subsidiaries of Icelandic pharmaceuticals company Actavis to pay $170 million for overcharging the Texas Medicaid program. That means the whistle-blower ? Ven-A-Care of the Florida Keys Inc. ? is in line to receive millions in reward money for acting as the public's watchdog. It's the first time that one of the targets of Ven-A-Care's lawsuits has elected to go to trial rather than settle out of court.

At a time when major biotech companies in California are eager for investors, Japanese pharmaceutical companies are increasingly becoming a go-to place for money to develop and sell new drugs. Japan's largest drug maker teamed up with Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. in San Diego last month to develop and sell an obesity drug that the companies think could eventually be worth $1 billion. In October, Japan's second-largest drug firm announced a $110-million payment to Medivation Inc. of San Francisco to develop and market a potential prostate cancer drug together in a deal that they hope could reach $655 million.

Voluntary guidelines for pharmaceutical companies will not wean the livestock industry off its addiction to antibiotics. Yet that's what the U.S. Food and Drug Administration - which has previously taken tentative steps to curb the agricultural use of antibiotics and is under a judge's order to carry out existing laws that call for limiting the overuse of two classes of antibiotics - is proposing. Obviously, the agency wants to avoid a protracted legal battle with producers, and its authority is limited by Congress' repeated refusal to act. But this latest plan falls far short of the decisive action needed to make a difference.

Re "Perilous Bug Is Creeping Onto the Streets," April 7: A few quotes tell why unmodified capitalism does not work. "Necrotizing fasciitis ('flesh eating' syndrome) is a terrible disease, but before now, Staph aureus was never the cause," said Dr. Robert Daum, a pediatrics professor at the University of Chicago. "The problem is we are not developing new antibiotics as fast as we used to because there are very few monetary incentives for pharmaceutical companies to do that," said Dr. Loren G. Miller, a researcher at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute.

Re "The Cost of Medication Is Enough to Make You Sick," Ventura County Perspective, Sept. 24. This opinion article stated that "pharmaceutical companies receive grants to develop new drugs both from private foundations and from taxpayers through government funds." In fact, pharmaceutical companies use revenues from sales of existing drugs and from investors to discover and develop new medicines. This year, companies will spend more than $26 billion on research and development.

Let's get the whole picture. Schering-Plough Corp. was fined for manufacturing problems ["Schering to Pay a Fine of $500Million," May 18]. Abbott Laboratories paid $100million for the same problem. I'd love to know their marketing budgets and profits in comparison with the fines. Charleen Siegler Granada Hills The argument posed by the major pharmaceutical companies, that they alone can produce pure drugs and therefore should be granted exclusive rights to production, thus depriving those in need of cheaper generic drugs, lost major ground in the FDA's $500-million fine against Schering.

Nobody wants to be told that he or she has a medical problem that can't be treated, that there's no medication that will help. For most common ailments, that's rarely a problem; the trouble comes instead when it's time to choose a drug. Sometimes there are just too many choices. More than 30 drugs are regularly prescribed to control hypertension; more than 20 treat depression. High cholesterol? There are more than 15 medications from which to choose. Even treatment for erectile dysfunction is no longer limited to Viagra.

A research collaboration between the Food and Drug Administration's top drug official and a pharmaceutical company during the 2008 heparin crisis did not constitute a conflict of interest, FDA chief counsel Ralph S. Tyler said in an interview Thursday. But the official, Dr. Janet Woodcock, voluntarily removed herself from consideration of a pending application by the company, Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc., as well as of a competing application by Amphastar Pharmaceuticals Inc., Tyler said.

At a time when major biotech companies in California are eager for investors, Japanese pharmaceutical companies are increasingly becoming a go-to place for money to develop and sell new drugs. Japan's largest drug maker teamed up with Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. in San Diego last month to develop and sell an obesity drug that the companies think could eventually be worth $1 billion. In October, Japan's second-largest drug firm announced a $110-million payment to Medivation Inc. of San Francisco to develop and market a potential prostate cancer drug together in a deal that they hope could reach $655 million.

Re "State health laws at risk," Nov. 16 I am glad to see an article on the damaging effects of interstate health insurance. GOP congressmen have insisted that allowing people to buy across state lines should take care of the high cost of insurance: People could "shop around." These congressmen never point out that it's the insurance industry that would benefit most from this change. Delaware became the credit card corporate center of the U.S. because it allowed high interest rate charges.

Congressional Democrats' intensifying efforts to pay for their healthcare overhaul and provide more relief for consumers are threatening to unravel a White House deal with the pharmaceutical industry and turn one of Washington's most powerful lobbies against the legislation. Drug makers, which have already spent $110 million lobbying Congress this year, are preparing to make a stand in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is working to unveil a healthcare bill this week.

Two Americans and an Israeli who used X-ray crystallography to map the precise structure of the ribosome, the cell's crucial protein-making factory, today won the 2009 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Their independent work, published in 2000, provides fundamental information about the workings of the cellular machinery at the atomic level and is already being exploited by pharmaceutical companies working to make new, more effective antibiotics. The $1.4-million prize will be shared equally by Thomas A. Steitz of Yale University; Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, who was born in India but is now a U.S. citizen; and Ada E. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Revovot, Israel.

Germany's biggest drug maker, Hoechst, and France's Rhone Poulenc are close to agreeing a merger, German newspaper Handelsblatt will report in its Monday editions. The newspaper, citing sources close to the negotiations, said the companies are currently working on the "fine tuning" of the deal. A source is quoted as saying the deal will be "a merger of equals" to be announced in December.

Pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly & Co. have a three-fold responsibility: (1) to provide adequate monetary returns for their stockholders; (2) to research and market increasingly effective medications; (3) and to deal with the sometimes tragic side effects of many of these drugs with honesty and compassion. My bottom-line question: Are stock share figures really what the pursuit of healing illness and pain is all about? IRENE P. BRECKLER Encino

Re "Healthcare reform that's hard to swallow," Opinion, Aug. 5 Most individuals, including authors Henry I. Miller and Jeff Stier, concerned about the potential inability of pharmaceutical companies to fund drug research should healthcare reform occur conveniently forget the amount of research and development funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and other government and private agencies. Once a drug is developed and marketed, all of the profits go to the drug company.

U.S. drug makers agreed Saturday to shell out $80 billion over the next 10 years to lower the cost of medication for seniors and help pay for President Obama's proposed healthcare overhaul, as part of an agreement hashed out with lawmakers and administration officials. The deal means the pharmaceutical companies will extend discounts on prescription drugs to millions of seniors who often must pay staggering drug costs not covered by their Medicare plan, according to a White House announcement.