Industry news

Rough waters for pharma's U.S. pricing power, yes. Sea change? Nope

Tracy Staton / Fierce Pharma

This could go down in pharma history as the week that drug pricing met pop culture. Social media in an uproar, headlines on Gawker and TechCrunch--even women's magazines' websites. Television and radio, too. But this week won't be remembered as the one when drugmakers lost their long-standing pricing power in the U.S.

AstraZeneca embraces crowdsourcing in a mix-and-match cancer R&D contest

Damian Garde / Fierce Biotech

Hoping to spotlight some promising new combination cancer treatments, AstraZeneca ($AZN) is opening up its data vault to researchers around the globe in an effort to crowdsource new avenues for research.

Americans overpaying hugely for cancer drugs - study

Ben Hirschler / Reuters

Americans are paying way over the odds for some modern cancer drugs, with pharmaceutical companies charging up to 600 times what the medicines cost to make, according to an independent academic study. The United States also pays more than double the price charged in Europe for these drugs - so-called tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), a potent class of cancer pills with fewer side effects than chemotherapy.

Latin America + MENA countries = opportunities, but with lots of challenges

Sergio Held / BioWorld

The links between the biotech sectors in Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) remain shallow, even if industry stakeholders in both sides believe in the potential the relationships represent. Though Israel is home to some of the most sophisticated biotech companies in the region, other countries are looking to Latin America to find export markets or manufacturing locations that may be easier to tap than the more competitive and developed markets in Europe or North America.

Emerging markets, life sciences to drive renewed growth at GE Healthcare, CEO says

Stacy Lawrence / Fierce Medical Devices

Almost one year into the job, GE Healthcare President and CEO John Flannery recently outlined his strategy for returning the healthcare business to growth. It's an $18 billion business that accounts for about 16% of the conglomerate's total revenues. He affirmed that the business will remain within GE, despite ongoing restructuring involving the divestiture of the finance arm.

More followers and more daily tweeting as Big Pharma's Twitter presence grows

Beth Snyder Bulik / FiercePharmaMarketing

Tweet on, drugmakers. Not only is Twitter use by pharma companies on the rise, but so is interest in what they've got to say. A recent survey by the Eye on FDAblog found more daily interactions on Twitter by pharma, along with a marked increase in followers versus last year.

Direct and co-investment by LPs on the rise

Brian Lee, Garrett Black / Pitch Book Blog

Limited partners’ role in the traditional scheme of private equity and venture capital isn’t as passive as it used to be. Direct and co-investment by LPs—dubbed “shadow capital” by Bain Capital, among others—has boomed as of late, driven in main by a cadre of experienced firms.

Pharma funding is plentiful but MENA countries seek greater innovation

Cornelia Zou / BioWorld

Rules imposed by Sharia Law are often a concern for individuals or small companies in underfunded sectors in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, but they are less of an issue for cash-rich industries. The good news is that most biomedical companies in MENA fall under the latter category.

Hillary Clinton to lay out her plan for cutting drug prices

Eric Palmer / FeircePharma

Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and his cohort, Rep. Elijah Cummings, have gotten a lot of attention for their proposed legislation to cut spiraling drug prices in the U.S. One person who seems to have noticed is Hillary Clinton, who says she will unveil her own plan this week for controlling the "cost of skyrocketing prescription drugs."

U.K. scientists develop ultrasonic device to better clean medical instruments

Stacy Lawrence / Fierce Medical Devices

Researchers from the University of Southampton have created an ultrasonic device that creates tiny bubbles to scrub surfaces--thereby reducing the need for additives and heating to achieve effective cleaning. Known as the StarStream, the device, which is already in commercial production by ultrasound cleaning specialist Ultrawave, essentially improves the cleaning power of water.