Pharmacy in jobs, news, schools

AACP Student Community Engaged Service Award will be awarded to four outstanding student-led community engagement programs delivering consumer education about medication use. These programs have been proven to expand access to affordable healthcare and dramatically improve the public’s health.

Teams from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, Creighton University and the University of Nebraska Medical Center will each receive the national award, sponsored by Teva Pharmaceuticals, at the 2012 AACP Annual Meeting. Read more…

KLE University’s College of Pharmacy, Belgaum had chalked out a plan to create an awareness about the role of a pharmacist as a healthcare professional.    This was in accordance with this year’s National Pharmacy Week theme  “Pharmacist — a healthcare professional”  which was observed between Nov 21 to 26, 2011.

During the week-long celebrations, the  Indian Pharmaceutical Association local branch Belgaum conducted a 2-km rally.   The rally was inaugurated by Prof. Chandrakant Kokate, Vice Chancellor, KLE University, Belgaum along with dignitaries including  Deputy Drug Controller, Drug Inspector, Belgaum district, Prof, F V Manvi, Dean, Faculty of Pharmacy, KLE University, Prof, A D Taranalli, Principal, KLEU’s College of Pharmacy, Prof. M S Ganachari, President, IPA local branch. Merck blockbuster in the widely used class of cholesterol drugs called statins.

The combination pill will sell for the same price as Januvia alone, about $215 per month. Generic versions of Zocor cost roughly $30 a month.That should make Juvisync attractive for the millions of diabetics currently not taking a statin. Guidelines from the American Diabetes Association recommend that diabetics who have heart disease or are over age 40 take a statin pill daily.”This provides a way to simplify their regimen and improve adherence,” said Dr. Susan Spratt, an endocrinologist at Duke University Medical Center.Spratt said many diabetes patients are taking six or more pills a day, including different types of pills for diabetes, blood pressure and high cholesterol. Read more…

Employees are told changes are under evaluation

* Aims to improve focus, reallocate resources

Oct 12 (Reuters) – Amgen Inc , the world’s largest biotechnology company, has told its research and development staff it is evaluating changes in its R&D programs, a company spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

The company told employees the changes would be aimed at improving focus and reallocating resources to key pipeline assets and activities, Amgen’s Mary Klem said in a statement. Read more…

Over the last few years there’s been a big increase in Big Pharma’s interest in rare diseases. With Genzyme’s success with drugs like Myozyme helping light the way, giants like GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Merck and Novartis have been organizing their own rare disease drug shops. And the FDA’s more flexible attitude in how it judges the data from clinical trials for these drugs–as well as the 7 years of marketing exclusivity they earn along with some hefty tax credits–hasn’t hurt. Read more…

With more drugmakers outsourcing more trials to contract research organizations, few should be surprised that the CRO sector is generating investor interest. The attention-grabbing deal announced this week in which two private equity firms – Carlyle Group and Hellman & Friedman – agreed to pay $3.9 billion in cash to buy Pharmaceutical Product Development is no random bet.

Might there more be more such acquisitions? Clearly, CROs are on the radar screen. Why? For one thing, prices are rising. A survey by RW Baird analyst Eric Coldwell found 42 percent of drugmakers say prices rose in this year’s second quarter, up from one-third in the first quarter. The backdrop is a projected 3.6 percent to 8 percent growth in R&D budgets, on average, among drugmakers and biotechs. Read more…

Today, the U.S. patent expires on the Pfizer’s Lipitor, the best-selling drug of all time. The first generic versions will go for sale, marking the end of a brand that has dominated the drug industry, lowered the cholesterol of tens of millions of patients, and generated more in annual sales than Major League Baseball or the entire box office of U.S. movies.

There may never be another medicine like it. That’s because of fundamental shifts in our understanding of biology, because of the demands made by patients, doctors, and society on new drugs, and because new drugs now have to compete with the super-cheap, generic versions of every medicine ever invented. Already, eight of ten prescriptions are for generics, and the drug industry is focusing on higher priced, specialty products for patients who are not helped by existing options. Good luck creating a new cholesterol drug as potent, safe for most people, and widely tested as Lipitor. Read more…

Good news! You learn that today, November 30, 2011, a generic version of Lipitor® is going on sale for the first time. You have been using Lipitor® as an adjunct to your diet to reduce your cholesterol, So you run down to the pharmacy and ask to have the generic atorvastatin, at a fraction of the price you have been paying for Lipitor®, the world’s top selling drug made by Pfizer.

What happens? There’s a good chance you’ll be told by the pharmacist that generic atorvastatin is “not available” but brand-name Lipitor® is. Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. (RBXY)’s copy of the $10.7 billion Lipitor cholesterol pill was released in the U.S., sending its share up the most in six months and threatening sales for Pfizer Inc. (PFE)

Ranbaxy, India’s biggest drugmaker, won approval to sell generic versions of the world’s top-selling medicine by the Food and Drug Administration yesterday. The company, based near New Delhi, will share profit on the first six months’ sales with Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (TEVA), Ranbaxy said today, adding that terms of the agreement won’t be disclosed.

Ranbaxy sought to persuade the FDA that its copies are equivalent to the original and that approval shouldn’t be thwarted by an ongoing dispute about plant violations in India. The FDA approval was for products made at a plant in New Jersey which may have been contingent on a deal with Teva, said Bino Pathiparampil, a health-care analyst at IIFL Ltd. in Mumbai. Read more…