miércoles, 31 de julio de 2013

Doctors with links to drug companies influence treatment guidelines


Doctors with financial ties to drug companies have heavily influenced treatment guidelines recommending the most lucrative drugs in American medicine, an analysis by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and MedPage Today has found. 

 The guidelines affect how doctors across the country treat patients for everything from diabetes to asthma, chronic pain, depression and high cholesterol. 

 Issued by leading medical associations and government institutions, treatment guidelines are supposed to be based on rigorous science. But the committees that write them have been dominated by doctors who have worked as paid speakers, consultants or advisers for companies selling the recommended drugs. 

 Critics say the financial relationships have corrupted medicine, resulting in cases where guidelines make dangerous or ineffective recommendations. Drug companies and some doctors counter that those with conflicts are often top experts in their field. 

 The Journal Sentinel examined 20 clinical practice guidelines for conditions treated by the 25 top-selling drugs in the United States. 

 The drugs sit in the medicine cabinets of millions of Americans - Nexium for acid reflux, Lipitor for high cholesterol, Cymbalta for depression and OxyContin for pain. Their collective sales topped $94 billion in 2011, accounting for 30% of drug revenue in the United States. 

 An analysis of the guideline panels, which involved 293 doctors, found:



  • Nine guidelines were written by panels where more than 80% of doctors had financial ties to drug companies.

  • Four panels did not require members to disclose any conflicts of interest. Of the 16 that did, 66% of doctors on the panels had ties to drug companies.

  • Some guidelines written by conflicted panels recommend drugs that have not been scientifically proven to safely treat conditions, leading to inappropriate or over prescribing. Medical experts have raised such questions about guidelines for anemia, chronic pain and asthma.
Click sobre imagen para ampliar



Ver

martes, 30 de julio de 2013

AllTrials (?): Big pharma "se aprovecha" (y moviliza) a los pacientes...en su favor.



The pharmaceutical industry has "mobilised" an army of patient groups to lobby against plans to force companies to publish secret documents on drugs trials. 

Drugs companies publish only a fraction of their results and keep much of the information to themselves, but regulators want to ban the practice. If companies published all of their clinical trials data, independent scientists could reanalyse their results and check companies' claims about the safety and efficacy of drugs. 

 Under proposals being thrashed out in Europe, drugs companies would be compelled to release all of their data, including results that show drugs do not work or cause dangerous side-effects. 

 While some companies have agreed to share data more freely, the industry has broadly resisted the moves. The latest strategy shows how patient groups – many of which receive some or all of their funding from drugs companies – have been brought into the battle. 

The strategy was drawn up by two large trade groups, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), and outlined in a memo to senior industry figures this month, according to an email seen by the Guardian. 

 The memo, from Richard Bergström, director general of EFPIA, went to directors and legal counsel at Roche, Merck, Pfizer, GSK, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Novartis and many smaller companies. It was leaked by a drugs company employee. 

 The email describes a four-pronged campaign that starts with "mobilising patient groups to express concern about the risk to public health by non-scientific re-use of data". Translated, that means patient groups go into bat for the industry by raising fears that if full results from drug trials are published, the information might be misinterpreted and cause a health scare. 

 The lobbying is targeted at Europe where the European Medicines Agency (EMA) wants to publish all of the clinical study reports that companies have filed, and where negotiations around the clinical trials directive could force drug companies to publish all clinical trial results in a public database. 

 "Some who oppose full disclosure of data fear that publishing the information could reveal trade secrets, put patient privacy at risk, and be distorted by scientists' own conflicts of interest. While many of the concerns are valid, critics say they can be addressed, and that openness is far more important for patient safety." (Más)



"Getting the right information to patients 
is a more pressing issue for the pharma industry 
than transparency of trial data," 



Slide: F.Comas/ Phamaggedon 2012. El día después...

Hace tiempo lo venimos denunciando...

Ver también:
AllTrials en PHARMACOSERÍAS

lunes, 29 de julio de 2013

Humor...es lunes: GLAXO, "el que la hace...la paga"

"El chance ya se acabo 
ese amor ya se fue 
tus lagrimas ya no me mueven 
tus palabras no me consuelan 
si hay un dicho que dice 
que el que la hace la paga
y ahora tu la estas pagando"











As investigation into GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) China deepens, expectations are rising that drug prices can be further lowered.(Más)



 Ver anterior:

GLAXO: Entrenad@s para el sexo.../ "El mundo de Suzie Wang"

Ver también:

¿Llevará China a cabo una purga contra las famacéuticas europeas? 

Why China is cracking down on the pharmaceutical industry

domingo, 28 de julio de 2013

GLAXO: Entrenad@s para el sexo.../ "El mundo de Suzie Wang"

Chinese police allege Glaxo sales reps trained to offer sexual bribes 

 Chinese police have released new details of GSK’s alleged crimes in China, claiming that sales representatives were given “clear directives” to offer bribes to doctors and were trained to cater “to their pleasures.” 

 GSK sales reps “established good personal relations with doctors by catering to their pleasures or offering them money, in order to make them prescribe more drugs,” China’s official news wire Xinhua reported on Friday. 

 Citing police investigations, Xinhua quoted a 35-year-old female “medical representative” who reportedly worked for a GSK regional sales manager named only as Mr Li. 

 The woman, named as Ms Wang, said “some executives gave clear directives to the sales department to offer bribes to doctors with money or opportunities to attend academic conferences.” 

 Ms Wang said she would even go so far as fulfilling some doctors’ “sexual desires” in order to “meet their needs” and persuade them to prescribe more drugs. 

 A doctor from a “reputable hospital” whose real name was not given, claimed that one GSK representative had “blatantly offered kickbacks to doctors”. (Ver)

Imagen tomé "prestada" de PharmaGossip





Ver anterior:

GLAXO y el sexo (cont.) / Reconoce (y se arrepiente...) de sus "pecados"...


Desde hoy en la Universidad Internacional Menedez y Pelayo / Santander






























Encuentro de expertos sobre la situación del español como lengua de comunicación internacional e intercambio científico y transmisión del conocimiento.

La Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo, UIMP, y la Fundación Lilly coinciden en su interés por organizar un encuentro de expertos cuyo objetivo primordial se centra en poner de manifiesto tanto el valor cultural como económico de la lengua española desde dos puntos de vista e intereses diversos: como lengua de comunicación internacional (alrededor de 500 millones de hablantes nativos más 200 millones como segunda lengua) y como lengua de intercambio científico y comunicación del conocimiento. (Más)



sábado, 27 de julio de 2013

Tatoo: BAYER se va de "nichos"...de mercado por supuesto / "Niche Market".

"Niche Marketing"

Una estrategia enfocada en nichos de mercado es la que se concentra en atender un grupo reducido de clientes potenciales, el cual puede estar determinado geográficamente, por categoría de consumidor o por línea de producto. 

 Este fenómeno de la concentración de los esfuerzos de mercadeo en pequeños segmentos - llamados nichos - lo hemos estado viendo desde hace bastante tiempo. El concepto tiene sus raíces en el creciente requerimiento de atender necesidades más especificas de sectores diferenciados del mercado. 

Jorge E. Pereira/ ¿Qué es el mercadeo en Nichos?



Bepanthol da vida a tus tatuajes...









Avisos publicados en 
Tatto life #59 y 60

Y, también..., se en_Red_an.

Ver

viernes, 26 de julio de 2013

Ratón de biblioteca: Manual erótico para conseguir que tu vida sexual deje de ser "manual" / Vamos a la cama.../Sergio Fernandez&Arturo González-Campos






¿Quieres mejorar tu vida sexual y la de tu pareja? Nosotros tenemos la solución: ¡Cambia de pareja! O si no, cómprate este libro, en el que aprenderás cuáles son los juguetes sexuales más alucinantes, las distintas maneras de llamar a la «cuca» o al «pepe» y cómo dejar en ridículo el Kamasutra.

En definitiva, el mejor libro sobre sexo escrito por dos de las personas que menos sexo han practicado en la historia.

El regalo ideal para tu novi@, tu ex, tu follaamig@...

Con prólogos de los humoristas Dani Rovira,
Florentino Fernández y Javier Cansado.

jueves, 25 de julio de 2013

Un Google farmacéutico

VIS Research busca evitar que laboratorios e investigadores malgasten recursos en caminos ya trillados.

 Gracias a la iniciativa del médico brasileño Fábio Thiers surgió un emprendimiento tecnológico que puede facilitar las investigaciones de la industria farmacéutica para desarrollar nuevos remedios. Thiers creó VIS Research, una plataforma global en línea que se dedica a agregar información sobre los centros de investigación en salud de todo el mundo. El profesional es un investigador en el Instituto de Tecnología de Massachusetts (MIT, por sus siglas en inglés) y se dio cuenta de que la cantidad de trabajos es tan grande que no siempre investigadores y laboratorios saben lo que se está haciendo en un área específica. Es así como el servicio de VIS reúne, ya hoy, datos de 400.000 centros de investigación de todo el mundo. “VIS recolecta, genera y agrega toda la información que la industria farmacéutica necesita para desarrollar nuevos fármacos”, se enorgullece Thiers. 

 Seleccionada para el TEDMED, uno de los principales eventos sobre innovación tecnológica en la asistencia sanitaria, la compañía tiene la intención de recaudar fondos para crecer más. En la actualidad, la base de financiación es la inversión de algunas empresas del sector y la comercialización de productos digitales. (Ver)

 Ver también: 
 Formação no MIT e Harvard 'me deu asas', diz empresário e pesquisador brasileiro

miércoles, 24 de julio de 2013

NOVARTIS´s sale.../ De rebajas: Vasella se va con solo $5.2 million pero...


Pharmaceutical firm Novartis has reached a final pay-off accord with former CEO Daniel Vasella worth CHF4.9 million ($5.2 million). This follows a controversial CHF72 million golden gag – later withdrawn in February – to keep him away from rivals. 

According to the board of directors of the Basel-based pharma giant, Vasella will receive $5.2 million in cash and unrestricted shares for eight months’ work this year assisting with the transition to his successor. 

 He will also get a guaranteed minimum fee of $250,000 a year from 2014 through 2016 just to be available for consulting and coaching. In addition he will be paid a consulting rate of $25,000 a day. 

 This replaces a previous plan to pay Vasella CHF72 million to keep him from working for rivals after he stepped down as chairman on February 22. The Swiss public's outcry led Vasella, who now reportedly lives in the United States and is on the boards of PepsiCo and American Express, to decline the huge severance package. 

Dominique Biedermann, director of the Ethos Foundation which advocates for tempering executive compensation, says the compensation plan announced Wednesday is still "exaggerated" and that "three years is a long time" to transition Vasella out of his position at Novartis. (Ver)

Ver:
Todo Vasella en PHARMACOSERÍAS

martes, 23 de julio de 2013

GLAXO y el sexo (cont.) / Reconoce (y se arrepiente...) de sus "pecados"...

GlaxoSmithKline accused of 'criminal godfather' behaviour in China


GlaxoSmithKline behaved like a criminal "godfather" in China, dispensing some 3 billion yuan (£323m) in bribes since 2007, Chinese police said on Monday.   During a half-year investigation, Chinese police said they had uncovered more than 700 middlemen through which the pharmaceutical giant allegedly funnelled money to health officials and doctors in order to prescribe GSK drugs.

The company also allegedly committed some unspecified "tax-related crimes".

"This company has been investigated for bribery allegations in many countries. From our investigation, bribery is part of the strategy of this company. This is why they have bribery activities in China," said Gao Feng, the head of the economic crimes investigation unit at the Ministry of Public Security.

Four senior GSK executives, all Chinese, are now in detention, Mr Gao said.

According to the Beijing News, the detainees are Zhao Hongyan, 41, GSK's legal counsel and head of compliance, Liang Hong, 49, a vice president in charge of operations, Huang Hong, 45, a general manager in charge of commercial development and Zhang Guowei, 50, the company's human resources director. (Ver)   ...
Imagen: PharmaGossip


GSK says senior executives appear to have broken Chinese law
GlaxoSmithKline said on Monday that some of its executives in China appeared to have broken the law as part of a major bribery scandal that has ensnared the British drugmaker.
The company also said that proposed changes to its operations would result in lower prices of its medicines in China.
"Certain senior executives of GSK China, who know our systems well, appear to have acted outside of our processes and controls which breaches Chinese law," the firm's head of emerging markets, Abbas Hussain, said in a statement.
Hussain, sent to China last week to lead GSK's response to the crisis, held a meeting with the Ministry of Public Security at which he also promised to review GSK's business model.

"Savings made as a result of proposed changes to our operational model will be passed on in the form of price reductions, ensuring our medicines are more affordable to Chinese patients," Hussain added. (Más)

Reconocen culpas...
Y se bajan los p...recios.
Ver tambien:
 
 GSK executive confesses to bribery on chinese television/The Telegraph

China Bars GlaxoSmithKline Executive From Leaving During a Bribery Inquiry

Anterior:

GLAXO y...el sexo.

lunes, 22 de julio de 2013

Humor...es lunes: Adición al sexo y..."nuevas tecnologías".










La adicción al sexo, conducta sin control sobre el comportamiento sexual que genera dependencia y abstinencia, afecta a entre el 6 y el 8% de la población, un porcentaje que, según un estudio de USP Dexeus, va en aumento como consecuencia de las nuevas tecnologías. (Ver)

Ver también:
Aumentan los casos de adicción al sexo por las nuevas tecnologías



domingo, 21 de julio de 2013

Terapias de los sentidos: The Mozart effect

Los médicos que escuchan Mozart mientras realizan colonoscopias podrían detectar más tumores precancerosos, sugieren investigadores.
Una mejor detección de los pólipos adenomatosos podría salvar vidas, anotaron los autores del estudio, dado que las tasas de supervivencia al cáncer colorrectal superan el 90 por ciento si la enfermedad se detecta a tiempo.

Investigaciones anteriores han mostrado que la música de Mozart puede proveer una mejora significativa a corto plazo en el razonamiento temporal y espacial, que tiene que ver con la capacidad de una persona de comparar y transformar imágenes mentales en el espacio y en el tiempo. Los investigadores buscaban determinar si este fenómeno, llamado el "efecto Mozart", desempeñaba algún papel respecto a las tasas de detección de los pólipos precancerosos durante las colonoscopias. (Más)


Anteriormente algunos mantuvieron su influencia beneficiosa en el desarrollo mental y la concentración en niños no sin cierto escepticismo por parte de otros (no había diferencia con Bach):

Some recent research has begun to find answers. I'll discuss two such studies today, and a third next week. First, Vesna Ivanov and John Geake studied three classrooms of 5th and 6th graders. For one class, Mozart's sonata for two pianos was played both before and during the standard paper folding and cutting task used for nearly all Mozart effect research. In this task, a piece of paper is folded several times, and then holes are punched in it. Students must imagine where the holes will be when the paper is unfolded. The second class listened to Bach's Toccata in G major while completing the task, and the third class took the test in silence. Here are their results:



While they found no difference between Mozart and Bach, both classes that listened to music performed better on the test than the class that worked in silence. So apparently the Mozart effect isn't limited to Mozart. Indeed, the effect has also been found with the music of Schubert, and even the new age performer Yanni (apparently no one has yet tested '80s synth pop). Ivanov and Geake offer some interesting guesses as to why the music improves performance. They point to Rausher's argument that cognitive processing levels remain essentially the same while listening to Mozart's music. They also suspect that music may help to mask the otherwise distracting background noise that is present in nearly all "silent" classrooms. (Más)



Obviamente la "oportunidad de negocio" y el marketing alrededor de...no se dejó esperar.



Ver anteriores Terapias de los sentidos...

sábado, 20 de julio de 2013

Pasión turca: De Sultanes, tés afrodisíacos, Viagras y otras virilidades...

Pasear por las calles de Estambul, por sus bazares. 
Observar los escaparates de sus farmacias aun antes del "Día V", en el que Viagra pierde su patente...

PFIZER: TEVA te va a dar duro con su genérico de Viagra...

 

...tiene un especial encanto, también, para alguien que se interese por el Marketing farmacéutico.

 





De lo "natural"...





A los "genuinos" (incluso genéricos)..."filos".





En toda su "potencia y dimensión"...

viernes, 19 de julio de 2013

Ratón de biblioteca: Marea blanca / Luis Daniel Martín




Relatos en primera persona de profesionales y ciudadanos anónimos sobre su experiencia en la Sanidad Pública española. 

"Marea Blanca" cuenta cómo surgió el movimiento ciudadano más importante de los últimos años en nuestro país, quién está detrás de él, qué finalidad persiguen y sobre todo, desvela lo que el ciudadano desconoce acerca de los planes privatizadores de la Sanidad. (Más)


"Hace 22 años me detectaron Diabetes en un Hospital público madrileño, San Carlos. Este año, mientras escribía el libro, me han descubierto un Linfoma Folicular en el Gregorio Marañón de Madrid. Ya ve, hay veces que la salud te juega malas pasadas, pero hay que luchar día a día y no rendirse. Para ello lo mejor es estar bien rodeado, porque todo suma, aunque digan lo contrario algunos políticos de verbo fácil. Esa fuerza reside en la confianza y yo confío en la Sanidad Pública y en los profesionales que la componen."

jueves, 18 de julio de 2013

GLAXO y...el sexo.


GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK)’s sales in China jumped 20 percent to about 1 billion pounds ($1.5 billion) last year, almost quadruple the pace of growth across its emerging markets. Police say bribes and sexual favors spurred the gain. The drugmaker now faces allegations of economic crimes involving 3 billion yuan ($489 million) of spurious travel and meeting expenses, and trade in sexual favors, the Public Security Ministry said yesterday. The allegations are “shameful” and would be a breach of the company’s systems and values, Glaxo said in a statement. 

 Bribes paid to hospitals, doctors and health officials to solicit sales helped boost Glaxo’s revenue, according to the ministry, which controls China’s police. If found guilty, Glaxo could be ordered to pay a penalty equating to only a fraction of its sales in China, the world’s fastest-growing major pharmaceutical market, said Fabian Wenner, a health-care analyst for KeplerCapital Markets in Zurich. 

While being involved in criminal offenses and associated with illegal actions is clearly damaging for GSK’s reputation, I doubt that this will be of material impact for the company,” Wenner said in an interview yesterday. 

 Kepler Capital Markets estimates Glaxo may have to pay $5 million to $10 million to settle the matter, based on fines paid in China for similar violations, “implying close to no impact for the shares,” he said. “I haven’t spoken to any investor who is concerned about this yet.” 

 Glaxo fell 0.3 percent to close at 1,744.50 pence in London trading yesterday. The stock has risen 31 percent this year, compared with a 17 percent gain in the Bloomberg EuropePharmaceutical Index. (Más)

Y Pfizer...
y Lilly...

Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) in December agreed to pay $29.4 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that employees gave cash and gifts to officials in China, Brazil, Russia and Poland to win millions of dollars in business. Pfizer Inc. (PFE), the world’s biggest drugmaker, agreed last August to pay $60.2 million to settle foreign bribery cases it disclosed to U.S. authorities involving alleged payments paid by employees and agents of subsidiaries, including in China. 

Ver:
Police Say Sexual Favors Spur $1.5 Billion Glaxo China Sales

GSK response to China investigation

martes, 16 de julio de 2013

USA: Quién paga por esto...?



The Obama administration issued a new rule this month that requires the makers of prescription drugs and other medical products to disclose what they pay doctors for various purposes, like consulting or speaking on behalf of the manufacturer. This overdue rule adds much-needed weight to previous, more limited disclosure requirements.
The goal is to let the public know about payments that might lead doctors to prescribe treatments that benefit them financially without necessarily benefiting patients.
This information will allow patients and their families to check whether their own doctors are receiving payments and to see if those financial connections affect a doctor’s recommendation for a particular treatment or device. (Más)

Ver también:

Derrochando...millones. ($760 million entre 2009 y 2011) (III)