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Pfizer exec Martin Mackay is decamping for cross-Atlantic rival AstraZeneca, where he’ll be president of R&D, a new position, Dow Jones Newswires reports. Mackay held the same title at Pfizer from 2007 to 2009, but in the wake of the company’s Wyeth acquisition, he split the top job … The company held its annual meeting at the Bank of America Auditorium in Boston, but told a Dow Jones Newswires reporter that media weren’t allowed to attend. The FDA today disclosed several warning letters it had sent to drug makers and weight-loss spas for “false” and-or “misleading” claims for their products. Here’s a rundown: Biogen Idec was cited for a promotional Webcast involving the multiple sclerosis drug Tysabri because it minimized the risk of a serious brain infection, the FDA said. The [...] GlaxoSmithKline finally got some good news from a study of its diabetes drug Avandia, but some top leading cardiologists remain unconvinced, saying the company’s new research has serious flaws. The results, unveiled late this afternoon at the American Diabetes Association conference in New Orleans, found Avandia doesn’t increase patients’ risk for heart attacks, according [...] MedPAC, the obscure commission that advises Congress on the inner workings of the vast Medicare system, could be headed for the health-reform spotlight. Talking yesterday with Senate Democrats about how to pay for his envisioned health overhaul, President Obama argued specifically in favor of expanding the powers of MedPAC, formally known as the Medicare Payment Advisory [...] A few highlights out of ASCO, the big cancer conference on in Orlando this weekend: Roche’s breast-cancer drug Herceptin extended the lives of some patients with stomach cancer. The drug is used in people whose tumors produce excessive amounts of a protein called her-2. That occurs in about 20%-25% of breast cancer and stomach cancer cases. [...] A few noteworthy developments today on the flu outbreak: Researchers called for stepped up surveillance of flu in the world’s pigs. An analysis of the genes of the H1N1 flu, published today in the journal Science, suggested that the strain may have been circulating undetected for some time. It’s “likely” that other new strains are also [...] The loudest fight in the health-reform debate so far has been over whether to create a government-backed health plan to compete against private insurers. One option that’s emerging in the search for a compromise: Give health insurers a few years to cut costs and increase access, and leave a government-backed health plan as a fallback [...] |
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