Impactiviti Daily 020110

TODAY’S NEWS

Tykerb + Femara for breast cancer approved – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Tykerb (lapatinib) in combination with Femara (letrozole) to treat hormone positive and HER2-positive advanced breast cancer in postmenopausal women for whom hormonal therapy is indicated...more Good for Glaxo on Tykerb, but GSK also announcing thousands more cuts.

UCB to U.S. primary care market: Good-bye now – UCB announced today that it plans to accelerate its U.S. transition to a purely specialty-focused biopharmaceutical company and will exit the primary care market in the U.S., effective 1 March 2010…more

Assuming FDA approval, five drugs to watch this year (one already approved).

Boston Scientific to J&J – Here’s $1.7B. Are we OK now?

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ePharma Summit, next week in Philadelphia. I’ll be there – how about you?

JUST FOR FUN

Rain outside the plane.

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Pharma News 3_17

Pharma Sales reps – what rewards do they most prefer?

Pharma Sales reps – gift-giving ban in Massachusetts coming? Plus, a summary from Med Ad News on the growing number of academic medical centers banning pharma sales reps entirely.

Pharma Sales reps – don’t delete documents!

Amgen gets a slap on the use of EPO for cancer, but it could have been worse. Some background on the medical problem here.

Eli Lilly garners unwanted news coverage of possible behind-the-scenes discussion of unapproved uses for Zyprexa. NY Times does its bit here; Lilly issues denial here. Meanwhile, former Eli Lilly drug rep talks to Congressional committee about sales practices: Shahram Ahari, who spent two years selling Prozac and Zypraxa for Eli Lily, told a Senate Aging Committee chaired by Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wisc., that his job involved “rewarding physicians with gifts and attention for their allegiance to your product and company despite what may be ethically appropriate.”

J&J warns of liver risk with HIV treatment Prezista.

Wyeth – drug approval setbacks.

Another potential obesity drug (from Merck) looking like it won’t be a heavyweight.

Very encouraging news about (Novartis‘) Femara’s efficacy in cutting cancer recurrence. And, some great efficacy numbers for CHOP/Zevalin treatment in lymphoma.

Type 2 diabetes – is it an intestinal thing? Interesting study showing the gastric bypass surgery can cause diabetes remission irrespective of other factors.

Are hormone pills increasing cancer risk?

GSK to get priority review (in Europe) for new platelet boosting drug Promacta.

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