Industry news

Faster U.S. Drug Approvals Come at Expense of Safety Oversight

Anna Edney / Bloomberg Business

Since 2012, an increasing number of drugs have been approved by U.S. regulators through programs meant to speed them to market. It’s good news for patients who benefit sooner from potentially life-saving treatments.

Biotech rehearses its 'difficult' second album at #JPM16

Damian Garde / Fierce Biotech

And that sentiment permeated this year's J.P. Morgan, where the familiar crush of besuited investors, executives and reporters flooded the avenues, lobbies and cafes around Union Square, polluting bright Bay Area aesthetics in colors and cuts better suited for Wall Street.

NIH genome sequencing program targets the genomic bases of common, rare disease

U.S. National Institute of Health

The National Institutes of Health will fund a set of genome sequencing and analysis centers whose research will focus on understanding the genomic bases of common and rare human diseases. The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of NIH, today launched the Centers for Common Disease Genomics (CCDG), which will use genome sequencing to explore the genomic contributions to common diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, stroke and autism. 

New year, new job? Pharma reps ready for a change: Report

Emily Wasserman / FiercePharmaMarketing

Job satisfaction can be elusive, as pharma sales reps know all too well. A new report from MedReps.com, a job board for medical sales reps, shows that while pharma reps and their biotech rep peers are mostly content with their jobs, they're still hankering for a change.

To flip the pricing debate, Big Pharma needs to tell some secrets

Tracy Staton / Fierce Pharma Marketing

Pharma execs have faced pricing questions from all sides at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference this week. Gilead Sciences ($GILD) faced the brunt of public anger about expensive drugs: Protesters crashed a panel session headlined by President John Milligan and EVP Gregg Alton, and demanded to know how he could sleep at night, given the cost of Gilead's hepatitis C drugs.

2015 FDA Approvals: Highest Levels in Over a Decade

BIOTechNow

2015 was a blockbuster year for FDA approvals of novel new medicines, many of them for serious and life-threatening conditions. As Dr. John Jenkins of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) notes in a recent blog post, “During this past year, we approved many new drugs to treat various forms of cancer, including four to treat multiple myeloma, and others to treat lung, skin, breast, brain, colorectal, and other cancers. We also approved new drugs to treat heart failure, high cholesterol, cystic fibrosis, and irritable bowel syndrome, as well as the first approved reversal agent for a commonly-used blood thinner.

Who's on board with Twitter's 10,000-character limit? Pharma brand managers

Emily Wasserman / FierceMedicalDevices

Pharma brand managers have loved to hate Twitter--actually, they've loved to hate the FDA's restrictive rules for tweets. But all that could change soon, according to pharma marketing experts, who see Twitter's proposed 10,000-character limit as a big boost to companies' marketing efforts.

Healthcare agency, top drugmakers spotlight growing role in public health at UN meeting

Beth Snyder Bulik / FiercePharmaMarketing

In the do-well-by-doing-good category, pharma companies and their agency partners are stepping up their public health projects in the developing world, and they're spotlighting some of those efforts at the United Nations this week.

Moving Up the Biopharma Career Ladder

Rita C.Peters / BioPharm International

More than 440 biopharmaceutical professionals from around the globe responded to the 2015 survey, which was fielded in September and October 2015. Nearly one-third (32.2%) of the respondents were from innovator biopharmaceutical companies; 16.8% were from generic-drug manufacturing companies. Representatives of contract research and manufacturing organizations, government/regulatory organizations, academia, equipment and raw materials suppliers, and consulting firms, also responded. 

Medical device sales reps scouting out new jobs in 2016: Report

Emily Wasserman / FierceMedicalDevices

The new year often means a new job search, and at least for medical device sales reps, this seems to be the case. Although most reps are content with their current position, they're still scouting out new opportunities in 2016, according to a new report from MedReps.com, a job board for medical sales reps.