Drug companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year to influence doctors' prescribing habits -- money that often goes directly into physicians' pockets for "consulting fees" and "educational presentations." Wondering if your doc is one of them? The nonprofit journalists at ProPublica can tell you.
Officially, it's the FDA's job to ensure that pharmaceutical ads adhere to guidelines. But the agency's annual compliance budget is $9 million, while drug companies spend $58 billion a year on marketing. So it comes as no surprise that only 18% of ads are in compliance with the rules. But it's still disturbing: This is your health.
The pharmaceutical industry is ready to fall off a cliff -- a "patent cliff." Over the next few years, some of the world's most popular and lucrative medicines will go off patent, and generic competition will siphon an estimated quarter of a trillion dollars from drugmakers' bottom lines.
Pharmaceutical companies looking for fresh sources of profit are increasingly investing in a range of health care innovations that aren't drugs at all, from smartphone apps and educational websites to social media platforms and wireless devices, reports Ernst & Young.
What is preventing the French pharmaceutical group and U.S. biotech from reaching a merger agreement?
When Merck halted a late-stage study of its potential clot-preventing drug vorapaxar in stroke victims last week, it didn't explain why. Now, the company has confirmed it stopped the study after concerns that the drug increased the risk of bleeding in some patients.
Can a market research firm sell a doctor's prescribing history to a pharmaceutical company without his or her permission? The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear this First Amendment case, which could change drug marketing and have a major impact on data-gathering practices.
Mergers, acquisitions and major restructurings made Big Pharma a much smaller and leaner sector, with some 54,000 jobs lost. At least that's better than 2009's 61,000 layoffs.
Led by the health insurance reform law, a flurry of drug and food recalls, key medical breakthroughs and plenty of layoffs and lawsuits, 2010 proved to be an exciting -- if not always positive -- year. Here's our rundown of the biggest health care stories.
A group of J&J shareholders has filed a complaint against the company, accusing directors of ignoring warnings signs pertaining to J&J's massive product recalls and government probes of manufacturing defects and marketing practices.
Shares of drugmaker InterMune have more than doubled in premarket trading after a European advisory panel backed the company's experimental lung treatment Esbriet (pirfenidone), something the biotech failed to accomplish in the U.S.
The FDA disappointed AstraZeneca and its investors by not approving its heart drug Brilinta, a blood-thinner that the company -- facing a severe patent cliff -- has high hopes for. If approved, it could be a multibillion-dollar blockbuster. But the FDA wants to see more analyses of results from a major study.
As part of its efforts to expand into the biotech market, Johnson & Johnson is making a long-anticipated bid for Dutch vaccine maker Crucell -- in spite of Crucell's recent manufacturing troubles.
Kenneth Frazier will be the new CEO of the pharmaceutical and health care giant, succeeding Richard Clark in January 2011.
