Newsletter

Welcome to the August 1, 2017, issue of Pharma Industry News Update (aka PinUp). Pharma scientists may be concerned about the portrayal of biopharma scientists as crazed villains in Hollywood movies, but they should be more concerned - mad as hell - about clinical and other data being hacked especially since their IT people should have been more on the ball!

Welcome to the July 28, 2017, issue of Pharma Industry News Update (aka PinUp). The Celgene case raises an interesting pharma marketing/regulatory issue; namely, are Medical Science Liaisons being deployed by pharma as sales reps in disguise in order to market drugs off-label? Meanwhile, FDA is looking to

Welcome to the July 25, 2017, issue of Pharma Industry News Update (aka PinUp). False and misleading drug advertising is usually the bailiwick of the FDA. But when the FDA fails to act - and even when it does - there's always litigation. An example is the recent federal court decision to award a plaintiff $150 million for punitive damages due to

Welcome to the July 21, 2017, issue of Pharma Industry News Update (aka PinUp). Computers may help the FDA speed up drug approval, and there may be many channels for pharma to reach out to patients, but some patients - especially women patients - still are not very confident that they know enough about their chronic medical conditions.

Welcome to the July 18, 2017, issue of Pharma Industry News Update (aka PinUp). Pharma has been leery of sponsoring accredited CME programs for years for various reasons. But the industry still likes to host 'speaker programs' to educate physicians without accreditation. Some of these programs, however, are nothing more than 'bribe to prescribe' events.

Welcome to the July 14, 2017, issue of Pharma Industry News Update (aka PinUp). It's time to see which pharma executives received the most compensation in 2016, even if a large chunk depends on stock price! We're talking tens of millions of dollars here! I am totally surprised that Pfizer's CEO and Chairman Ian Read 'took home' so much less than 'price gouging' Mylan and Valeant executives. Go figure!

Welcome to the July 11, 2017, issue of Pharma Industry News Update (aka PinUp). Investors - including many pharmaceutical companies - are pouring billions of dollars into digital health companies. Many of the 'solutions' offered by these companies will never see the light of day. One expert - Richard Meyer, Principal at Strategic Marketing Solutions - believes 'most of the money will never see dime one of ROI.'

Welcome to the July 7, 2017, issue of Pharma Industry News Update (aka PinUp). We talked about 'influencer marketing' in a previous issue of PinUIp. That newly-minted 'buzzword' generally applies to using real patients to influence other patients. But the pharmaceutical industry has long used physicians to influence other physicians. As we see in this issue of PinUp, physicians who have received payments from drug companies are also influencing FDA drug panels.

Welcome to the June 23, 2017, issue of Pharma Industry News Update (aka PinUp). The relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and patients is often a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. This is especially true of how the industry funds and benefits from so-called 'patient advocacy groups and organized 'patient activists.'

Welcome to the June 27, 2017, issue of Pharma Industry News Update (aka PinUp). Can we trust the pharmaceutical industry to present unbiased information to physicians? In some cases, physicians may be overwhelmed by positive data without being adequately informed about the context of that data; e.g., disclosure of clinical trial endpoints. Patients too may not have access to all the information they need.