Industry news

Kazakhstan will develop personalized medicines

GMP News

Richard Barker, the author of world-famous bestseller on breakthrough medicine, presented in Astana the strategy of personalized medicine development for healthy and long life of the people of Kazakhstan.

Arming antibiotics with a vaccination-like immune response

Angus Liu / FiercePharma

Harnessing the power of the body’s immune system has already proven to be effective in treating cancer. Scientists at Lehigh University are now borrowing that idea to power up existing antibiotics’ ability to attack drug-resistant bacteria.

Pathways to Potential in Europe's Pharmerging Markets

Filip Conic / Pharmaceutical Executive

Southeastern and Eastern Europe is often thought of as a single homogenous region of debt-saddled healthcare systems, poor funding and interventionist payer policies. In reality however, the region comprises heterogeneous markets and an individualized approach is needed to assess their attractiveness and to seize commercial opportunity for a novel drug or medical device.

Patient Communications: Why Pharma Leaders Should Think Like Social Marketers

Patrick Ladbury, Oliver Childs / Pharmaceutical Executive

Pharma is well-versed in communicating with patients. From simple patient leaflets to full blown patient support programs and nationwide disease awareness campaigns, the industry has been directly serving up health messages to patients since the first days of aspirin marketing.

Amazon to Acquire Online Pharmacy

BioPrarm International

Amazon announced on June 28, 2018 that it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire PillPack, an online pharmacy that delivers medications in pre-sorted dose packaging, coordinates refills and renewals, and ensures that shipments are sent on time for people taking multiple daily prescriptions in the United States.

Early-Development Strategy for PTE in Biologics Given Unknowns in the Law

By Michael Binns, Sharad Bijanki / Pharmaceutical Executive

We have all heard the phrase, “The early bird gets the worm.” No different in the world of biologics, a company that implements an early development strategy can insulate itself from an early patent “cliff.” A pharmaceutical company’s patent cliff is typically a function of which patents have a term extension, if any. A patent term extension (“PTE”) on the right biologic patent can delay such a cliff up to two years past the 12-year FDA marketing exclusivity date—thus, a well-timed PTE can easily be worth hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

EMA Recommends First CART-T Cell Therapies

BioPrarm International

On June 29, 2018, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommended Novartis’ Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) and Kite Pharma’s Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel), chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells therapies for blood cancer, for approval in the European Union (EU). Kymriah and Yescarta are the first CAR T-cell treatments to be recommended by the agency. In August 2017, Kymriah became the first CAR-T therapy approved by FDA in the United States, with Yescarta becoming the second in October 2017. 

Russia has the shortest period of drug registration to date

GMP News

This was announced by the Minister of Health the Russian Federation, Veronika Skvortsova, at an expanded meeting of the State Duma Committee on Health Protection.

New production facility for implants production was opened in Kaluga region

GMP News

On July 4, the city of Obninsk in the Kaluga region hosted an official ceremony marking the opening of a factory by Sanatmetal CIS LLC for manufacturing the implants for traumatology, spine surgery, dentistry, veterinary medicine, as well as the prosthetic implants of joints.

Russia backs medical IT developers

Marchmont Innovation News

Russia’s Advanced Research Fund (ARF) has been boosting support for developers of IT projects to be used in medicine. “We’re witnessing a growing number of IT projects in the field of medicine. These primarily include mobile apps for telemedicine, nervous disorder diagnostics by analyzing the way a person speaks, rehabilitation following strokes and brain damages, and many others,” ARF Deputy CEO Sergei Garbuk was quoted as saying. He is in charge of the IT department at the Fund.