Impactiviti Daily 010810

What is Impactiviti? In short, we’re a pharma network and consultancy. We help pharma/biotech/med device clients find optimal vendor/partners for training and social media needs. If you need advice and want to tap into our extensive network of best-in-class providers (the vendor matchmaking service is free to clients), contact us!

TODAY’S NEWS

Glaxo getting into the movie-making business? This film sounds gastronomic!

Diabetes and donuts. Well, donut holes.

Teva looking to supersize by 2015.

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Selling to the C-Suite. For certain high-level salespeople – in pharma or outside of that vertical – there is an art form to selling higher. Our provider network can help design a program for you. Contact us (stevew at impactiviti dot com, or phone at 973-947-7429) for recommendations.

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A free e-book for pharma marketers – how to approach the on-line world of patient advocacy, communities, and social media. Written by multiple experienced folks in the field (yes, even I contributed a chapter.

JUST FOR FUN

Two minutes of high-flying post-Christmas fun (video).

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Impactiviti Daily 112409

I wish all my readers and pharma-industry colleagues a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

TODAY’S NEWS

Cephalon, Ception, and CINQUIL: the stats don’t reach significance, but at least all the names are similar – “We are pleased to see a positive biological effect of CINQUIL,” said Steve Tullman, Chief Executive Officer at Ception Therapeutics. “Conducting clinical studies in a new disease area is always challenging. We will continue to review the data from this study and from our ongoing open-label study to find the best path forward for CINQUIL for the treatment of eosinophilic esophagitis.”…more

Might a few companies (such as Endo or King) be targets to go private? WSJ reports.

Can pharma sales reps be turned into better value creators? A question we’re all thinking about…

Duh.

Oops. Abbott‘s Meridia weight-loss drug associated with higher rate of cardiovascular events – Meridia is a weight-loss drug approved in 1997. As part of its post-approval commitments, Abbott has been conducting a large study of 10,000 patients to determine whether treatment with Meridia could reduce the number of heart-related adverse events compared to a placebo. In mid-November, however, Abbott reported to regulatory agencies that treatment with Meridia was associated with an 11.4% rate of cardiovascular events compared to 10% for patients treated with placebo…more

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HR – leadership, compliance, diversity, and more. The Impactiviti network of providers has solutions, not only for pharma sales training, but for a whole range of corporate and HR training (inside and outside of life sciences).  Contact us (stevew at impactiviti dot com, or phone at 973-947-7429) for recommendations.

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An update on Pfizer’s Social Media initiatives. Encouraging!

JUST FOR FUN

Changing behavior through fun. The Piano Stairs.

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Subscribe to the Impactiviti blog via e-mail (which will bring you Impactiviti Daily – a brief of the day’s top pharma news)

Sign up for the Impactiviti Connection twice-monthly e-newsletter (see sample)

Connect with Steve Woodruff

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Impactiviti Daily 110209

TODAY’S NEWS

Takeda buys into Amylin‘s weight-loss drug portfolio – Takeda will pay $75 million upfront for medicines including Amylin’s pramlintide/metreleptin and davalintide, in the second phase of testing needed for U.S. regulatory approval, Osaka- based Takeda and San Diego-based Amylin said in a statement…more Plus, quickie update on three other anti-obesity drugs being developed by various companies.

New lupus treatment (HGS/Glaxo) looking promising on pathway to approval – Human Genome Sciences Inc said its experimental lupus drug Benlysta was successful in a second large clinical trial, paving the way for approval of the first new treatment for the disease in 50 years…more

Vertex HepC drug cures 80% – The hepatitis C cure rates of greater than 80% across all four patient groups of the study are also the highest ever recorded in any telaprevir study to date and exceed the cure rates reported in separate studies of boceprevir, a competing hepatitis C drug under development by Schering-Plough…more

Let’s investigate: Amgen and Shire are the latest.

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Meetings. Event planning and execution, logistics, training. We can match you up with the ideal partner(s). Contact us (stevew at impactiviti dot com, or phone at 973-947-7429) for recommendations.

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Not counting on blockbusters – changes, and the future, at Sanofi-Aventis.

JUST FOR FUN

Bayer turns its headquarters into a giant billboard. Pretty eye-catching (watch the video clip).

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Subscribe to the Impactiviti blog via e-mail (which will bring you Impactiviti Daily – a brief of the day’s top pharma news)

Sign up for the Impactiviti Connection twice-monthly e-newsletter (see sample)

Connect with Steve Woodruff

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Pharma News this week

Glaxo: more big cuts, and the U.S. HQ needle pointing south – GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced that it will reduce its sales personnel by 12% to 7,500 down from 8,500. The company will slash 1,800 jobs resulting in a total of 1,000 layoffs. Some positions have already been eliminated while other personnel will be reassigned to new areas. The company is also consolidating operations and moving personnel from its Philadelphia facility to Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, where it employs about 5,000 people…more

Gilead gets a boost from new HIV treatment guidelines – The DHHS named Gilead’s Truvada, a combination of the company’s HIV treatments Emtriva and Viread, the lone preferred regimen for previously untreated HIV patients. Gilead’s shares added 3.2% to $47.31 in regular trading…more

Genzyme pours serious cash into Osiris – Genzyme Corp. will pay Osiris Therapeutics Inc. as much as $1.38 billion to develop therapies that use stem cells to treat blood cancers, inflammation and joint damage. ..more

Amylin’s Byetta LAR gets extended delay for extended release – Shares of Amylin Pharmaceuticals have collapsed after it emerged that US regulators have rejected data for a once-weekly version of its diabetes drug Byetta…more

UCB gets OAB drug approval – UCB announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the anti-muscarinic agent Toviaz® (fesoterodine fumarate) extended-release tablets for the treatment of overactive bladder (OAB) with symptoms of urge urinary incontinence, urgency, and urinary frequency…more

What does Jupiter have to do with cholesterol treatments? A lot!

But will Winnie be used to sell obesity treatments? Pooh characters as Seroquel sales aids? Hmmm…

Cephalon’s Treanda gets another indication – on Friday received a second approval from the Food and Drug Administration for its cancer drug Treanda, this time as a treatment for patients with non-Hodgkins lymphoma (NHL)…more

CV Therapeutics’ Ranexa gets a first-line approval – CV Therapeutics, Inc. announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new, first line indication for Ranexa® (ranolazine extended-release tablets) for the treatment of chronic angina. The new labeling also provides information showing that Ranexa reduced arrhythmias including ventricular arrhythmias, new onset atrial fibrillation and a potentially dangerous slow heartbeat known as bradycardia in patients with coronary artery disease. In addition, the new labeling states that Ranexa reduces hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) in patients with diabetes…more

Promising experimental Hep-C treatment in the Schering pipeline – results being reported.

Obesity drugs: everybody bails out – For those of you hoping that America’s obesity crisis could be solved with a pill, think again. Pfizer announced late Wednesday that it is scrapping its anti-fat drug, the as-yet unnamed “CP-945,598,” for essentially political reasons. Sanofi-Aventis today also announced that it was ending its trials on Acomplia/Zimulti, an obesity pill that was approved and then yanked in Europe. And Merck a couple of weeks ago pulled its fat pill taranabant, from its pipeline…more

Why did J&J consolidate its drug advertising biz between 2 big agency holding companies?

Big Pharma’s loss may be Little Pharma’s gain – as big drugmakers continue to trim jobs, smaller biopharmaceutical makers and specialty pharma are benefiting from the downsizing, according to David Poling, director of state business operations at Aerotek, a staffing firm…more

The 10 weirdest drug stories of the month.

First glimpse of the secrets of the cancer genome. Fascinating.

If you’re not up on the latest pharma/legal issue called pre-emption, you need to be. Go here for the latest.

Want even more news? Chris Truelove over at Pharmalive has a big roundup this week – lots of interesting tidbits and links..

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Pharma News 9_19

Huge cuts at Schering-Plough: 1,000 sales jobs going away – As part of a reorganization already under way, the drugmaker is eliminating 1,000 sales jobs – or 20 percent of its sales force – by October. Many of the 4,000 or so surviving reps, meanwhile, will be shifted to pitch different types of docs or work in other territories. A Schering-Plough spokesman confirmed the cuts…more

New Roche arthritis biologic delayed – In a setback for the drugmaker, the agency has issued a ‘complete response’ letter for Actemra, a biologic Roche hopes to market for treating rheumatoid arthritis. An FDA advisory committee endorsed its use last July by a 10-1 vote, but the agency wants “additional documentation” about manufacturing and other unspecified info, some of which relates to final labeling, according to Roche…more

Merck’s Gardasil: OK for vaginal cancer – U.S. health regulators have approved Merck and Co’s Gardasil vaccine to protect women against rare vaginal and vulvar cancers, the Food and Drug Administration said on Friday…more

GSK’s Tykerb: OK for head and neck cancer (maybe) – New clinical data supports the use of GlaxoSmithKline’s drug Tykerb as a treatment for head and neck cancer, endorsing the company’s move to push ahead with a final Phase III study in this indication…more

UCB’s Keppra XR: OK for sale – Belgian pharma group UCB said on Monday that U.S. health authorities had approved epilepsy drug Keppra XR and that it would go on sale just before its mother drug loses patent protection…more

Impactiviti’s Recommendra: Now prescribed for all training recommendations (OK, just checking to see if you were reading…)

J&J putting some heat on Enbrel for psoriasis – Johnson & Johnson said on Thursday its experimental psoriasis drug proved more effective than top-selling treatment Enbrel in a late-stage trial, was just as safe and required far fewer injections…more

Memory Pharmaceuticals – forget about jobs for half of employees.

An interesting new avenue of diabetes research unveiled – new class of hormones produced by body fat identified.

On the pharma marketing front….

Reuters and The Doctor’s Channel collaborate for streaming video healthcare “snacking.”

On-line detailing taking off.

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Behemoth Pharmaceutical Hires Notre Dame Coach as CEO

In a surprise move announced today, Behemoth Pharmaceutical has hired Charlie Weis, former Notre Dame football coach, to be CEO.

“We needed some fresh leadership around here, and Charlie Weis, with his background in sports metaphors, seemed like the ideal choice,” stated Frank Gipper, current Chairman of the Board. “When he came and spoke to us about his vision for a winning healthcare company, we just knew that he could come on board and help us execute.”

According to Weis, “It’s a real battle out there, but the Behemoth team is clearly ready to play, and we’re just going to take it one molecule at a time. We’re not going to leave anything in the labs, but we’re going to lace it up and run the best discovery program we can. I’m pumped about our beta blockers, and also that product safety I’ve been hearing about. We might even get a few small-pharma transfers to beef up our offensive pipeline.

“On paper we’re as good as any of the other guys. Right now, it just comes down to blocking and tackling. Or dosing and titrating, or whatever it is we do. We’re going to put on a clinic with our clinical trials and stay focused, remembering that there is no “I” in TEAM.”

Behemoth staffers seemed cautiously excited about Weis, feeling the momentum shift as the home team lined up for the kickoff of the new leadership group. “It’s been a real pressure cooker here, but this was a gutsy hire, and it could mark the turning point for our company,” declared Sam Biotic, VP of Sales. “Some of our mature products are in a fourth-and-long situation, but we’re tossing our old game plan out the window, we’re going to fight it out in the trenches, and we intend to put some market share points up on the board.”

Others were not impressed. J.P. MacRost, Litigation Consultant and Pharmaceutical Marketing Expert Witness, said, “Hey…I’m supposed to be the big whistleblower around here. Where does this executive jock wannabe get off thinking he can call the shots? Has he ever testified before the Swedish Congress? Besides, he looks like he needs a serious jolt of Alli or something.”

In compensation for Weis, Notre Dame will receive a VP of Finance and a diuretic to be named later.

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The Pharma Side
Copyright 2007 Impactiviti LLC

Other spoofs from The Pharma Side

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From Sore Throat to More Bloat

Fascinating article today on the possible connection of a common cold virus to weight gain. It’s worth a read.

But what I found most amusing was the accompanying picture and caption:

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