* 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.

She said additional details of the plans will be given on Oct. 24 when Amgen, based in Thousand Oaks, California, announces its third-quarter financial results.

Last year, Amgen posted revenue of $15.1 billion and spent $2.9 billion, or about 19 percent of its revenue, on R&D — a level that some investors have deemed too high.

“The $3 billion R&D line item annually is high and investors see room to start to trim this,” said RBC Capital Markets analyst Michael Yee.

He estimated that for every $100 million — or 3 percent — of R&D cuts, Amgen’s earnings per share could increase by between 8 cents and 10 cents. Yee has forecast Amgen’s 2011 EPS at $5.20

Worldwide, the company’s staff totals about 17,000.

Shares of Amgen have lost about a third of their value since early 2006, when safety concerns began to emerge about its flagship anemia drugs Epogen and Aranesp.

The company’s shares closed at $56.64 on Wednesday and were unchanged after-hours.

UPDATE 2-Amgen signals R&D changes to employees is a post from: Pharmacy in jobs, news, schools

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.

Large and mid-sized drugmakers reported fewer price decreases, while small firms, which include biotechs, reported more price decreases in the his most recent survey. However, the magnitude of price decreases was flat to lower across the board. “The vast majority of internal pharma staff surveyed believe that they are spending the same, or more, per unit of outsourced work today than in the recent past,” Coldwell writes in an investor note.

Meanwhile, the 388 drugmakers and biotechs that were surveyed also reported that that CRO clients expect a 9 percent increase in the R&D budget that is outsourced, with total market penetration by CROs increasing from 35 percent last year to 38 percent in 2011. Among large drugmakers, 27 percent expect to outsource, while 47 percent of the smallest companies expect to do likewise.

“Looking ahead several years, we have generally concluded that client R&D budgets will be flattish in total, yet the CRO industry secular market move to higher involvement will continue as clients replace less efficient internal functions with more efficient and cost effective external solutions,” Coldwell opines.

Separately, the Association of Contract Research Organizations conducted a survey of its own members and examined 11,508 trials carried out by ACRO members and found that each CRO was involved, on average, in more than 750 studies. By comparison, ACRO says that about nine of its members worked on roughly 400 trials in 2008. They also contributed to 33 of 38 drugs approved in the US and Europe last year.

Not surprisingly, the CROs were busy with oncology trials – 961, or 19 percent, of 4,964 compounds studied last year were novel cancer meds. Three years ago, oncology amounted to 18 percent of the activity. And overall revenue for ACRO members rose 156 percent since the association was founded in 2001, a compound annualized rate of 11 percent.

As Coldwell sees it, the “ultimate end game” has outsourcing penetration in the pharmaceutical industry reaching between 60 percent and 80 percent in the distant future. “At a time when many people are asking ‘where are the jobs?,’ we have a clear answer,” says ACRO executive director Doug Peddicord. With all that growth, CROs are likely continue to appear attractive. And going private offers an added bonus – a chance to escape the microscopic scrutiny that is regularly applied to publicly traded companies.

Why Contract Research Organizations Are So Hot is a post from: Pharmacy in jobs, news, schools

Drug companies pay medical professionals for a wide range of activities, from speaking engagements to consulting. While legal, the practice raises questions about potential conflicts, and whether the interests of patients may be compromised.

From 2009 to early 2011, at least 25,000 Texas physicians and researchers received a combined $57 million — and probably far more — in cash payments, research money, free meals, travel and other perks, according to data culled from 12 drug companies and provided by the nonprofit investigative news organization ProPublica.

Dozens of these medical professionals were paid more than $100,000 each during that period. And 114 were professors, physicians, psychiatrists or researchers who were already paid a salary by the state — in some cases more than a half-million dollars a year. These state employees brought in nearly $3 million combined from pharmaceutical companies from 2009 to early 2011, according to a Texas Tribune analysis of the ProPublica data.

Nationwide, pharmaceutical manufacturers routinely pay medical professionals to assess a new product or to help contribute to the drug company’s sales. The companies fly medical professionals to seminars and conferences and may also pay speaking fees. State-employed doctors and researchers are generally no exception, though they are supposed to comply with their individual institutions’ conflict-of-interest policies.

“It’s important to state out of the gate the importance of these interactions, the value they bring to physicians, to health care professionals in general and ultimately to patients,” said Karl Uhlendorf, vice president of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

But the financial relationships raise questions about the influence of drug companies on prescribing patterns or research results. The practice “puts patients and tax dollars at risk,” said Lee Spiller, the policy director for the Texas branch of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a nonprofit mental health watchdog. “It taints the whole process. I’d hate to think donations were shaping state mental health policy in particular.”

Dr. Stanley Self, a part-time psychiatrist at Texas’ state-run Rusk psychiatric hospital, earns $166,000 a year from the state. He also earned at least $145,000 from drug companies in 2009-10, largely for speaking engagements. Dr. Self did not return calls seeking comment on his work for drug companies, but his receptionist said he is “not doing much of that anymore.”

Christine Mann, a spokeswoman for the Department of State Health Services, said agency employees, like Dr. Self, are allowed to hold a second job as long as there is not a conflict of interest. The agency “is looking into this issue further and will examine its policies to see if there are provisions that need to be strengthened,” Ms. Mann said.

Dr. Joseph Bailes, an oncologist and the vice chairman of the executive committee at the Cancer Research and Prevention Institute of Texas, earned roughly $250,000 between 2009 and 2010 as a consultant for Pfizer. Dr. Bailes said that he has advised Pfizer on Medicare policy — not on drug development — and that it has no bearing on his role with the institute, a $3 billion endeavor financed by voter-approved bonds, for which he is an “unpaid volunteer” specializing in efforts to bring new cancer therapies to market.

“It doesn’t influence anything I do,” Dr. Bailes said, adding that his committee is not responsible for selecting projects for financing.

Dr. Stanley Lemon, who left his post as the director of the Institute for Human Infections and Immunity at the University of Texas Medical Branch in April and is now at the University of North Carolina, made nearly $80,000 consulting for Pfizer in 2009-10. Dr. Lemon, who is still an adjunct professor at U.T.M.B. but is no longer on the state payroll, said consulting for the pharmaceutical industry has enriched his academic life and made him a more productive scientist.

“As long as they are properly reported and do not engender conflicts of interest or commitment, such interactions between industry and academia help to move drug development forward in a positive way,” Dr. Lemon wrote in an e-mail.

The analysis of Texas pharmaceutical payments comes as the state attorney general’s office prepares for a mammoth trial in January against Janssen Pharmaceuticals and its parent company, Johnson & Johnson. Janssen, which has vigorously denied any wrongdoing, has been accused of offering trips and kickbacks to state health officials to get the schizophrenia drug Risperdal on an approved drug list for medications that are paid for by the state.

Across the country, the reporting of such perceived conflicts has traditionally fallen short. Companies have not been required to disclose payments, and medical institutions have made limited efforts to police their employees.

The ProPublica data covers just a part of drug company payments — it represents about 40 percent of the 2010 pharmaceutical market in the United States — and includes manufacturers that have either begun disclosing their payments voluntarily, or as a result of legal settlements.

Beginning in March, federal law will require drug and device companies to report and disclose all of their payments to medical professionals and researchers; by September, the data is supposed to be displayed in a searchable online government database. Texas universities — whose doctors and researchers account for $2.7 million of the pharmaceutical money statewide from 2009 to early 2011 — are working to update their own conflict policies and monitoring systems.

The University of Texas System will require its faculty members to report every dollar they are paid by a drug or device manufacturer and all financial interests in their research beginning Jan. 1.

The U.T. Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas is working on an electronic conflict-of-interest filing system that will feed into a soon-to-be-released public disclosure Web site, said Tim Doke, U.T.-Southwestern’s vice president for communications.

“We’ve been working feverishly here for the last couple of months,” Mr. Doke said. “Transparency is the absolute key to the public being confident that conflicts that exist are being managed appropriately.”

At the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, university administrators monitor drug company databases to ensure that faculty-conflict filings match, and to set limits on how much doctors and researchers can accept, said Dr. Raymond DuBois, the center’s provost and executive vice president.

But such efforts at transparency vary widely depending on the institution, or may be nonexistent when there is no institution at all. State records show that of the 74 doctors and psychiatrists statewide who have routinely prescribed the highest number of costly antipsychotic drugs to patients on Medicaid, the joint state-federal health insurance program for the disabled, children and the very poor, 10 received payments from drug companies in 2009-11 — from $11,000 to $180,000 each.

All but one got the payments from the maker of the drug they most commonly prescribed.

Payments to Doctors by Pharmaceutical Companies Raise Issues of Conflicts is a post from: Pharmacy in jobs, news, schools

It goes something like this, “Now that I’m out of a job, I might as well go back to school,” according to Jay Walls, a representative of the University of North Texas graduate school.

The turnout Wednesday for the Graduate & Professional School Fair held on the campus of Abilene Christian University bore out that thinking.

A steady flow of prospects began circulating through the exhibit room shortly after the fair started. Walls wasn’t surprised.

“Enrollment has gone up because of the economy,” he said. “Schools tend to do better when the economy is down.”

Wednesday’s fair was sponsored by the West Central Texas Career Consortium, which consists of eight local colleges and universities and Dyess Air Force Base.

Ben Klein, who is on schedule to receive a master’s degree in clinical psychology from ACU in May, credited the economy with forcing him to make some decisions. Klein browsed the tables set up by about 25 institutions, picking up literature and learning about their doctoral programs.

“If more jobs were out there and more money was out there, I might just stop with my master’s,” Klein said.

But because of limited well-paying positions for clinical psychologists with only a master’s degree, Klein decided to check out doctoral programs.

And, he is looking into possibly joining the military as a means of paying for the degree. At least two branches of the service — Army and Air Force — offer scholarships for doctoral degrees with a military commitment after graduation, Klein said.

Deciding to go directly into a doctoral program, rather than working first, and getting the military to pay for it is a direct result of a slumping economy, Klein said.

Jace Jones, who was manning a table for the University of North Texas School of Public Health, faced the same situation as Klein. He has a master’s degree in health policy and management, but a doctorate is needed for higher-paying jobs.

So, Jones decided to increase his value by working on a doctorate. He would have started work with the master’s degree if good jobs had been available.

“There just weren’t that many out there,” he said.

On the flip side, the recruiting is picking up.

“It’s been kind of good for graduate schools,” he said.

Another man with an easy job Wednesday was Make Nall, who represented the Texas Tech University School of Pharmacy in Abilene.

The school has enrolled 40 students each year since opening, with a current enrollment of 120. Next year’s 40 will bring the school to its maximum enrollment. Even without a bad economy, the pharmacy schools gets more applicants than it can handle, Nall said.

Last year, between 600 and 700 people applied. But the economic downturn has brought some unusual applicants such as a chiropractor and a few physicians. The physicians are applying from rural areas, Nall said, because small clinics are hiring more physician’s assistants than doctors. Physicians leaving those clinics are enrolling in pharmacy schools because the entry level pay for a pharmacist can be as high as $140,000 a year, Nall said.

Another recruiter not having any trouble Wednesday was Mark Cortez, field representative for Walden University, an accredited online institution of higher learning. The flexibility offered by an online education draws working people and other nontraditional students, Cortez said. The poor economy just adds to the mix.

“It’s been big,” Cortez said. “People have been having a hard time finding a job.”

Pharmacy, Without a job, it’s back to school is a post from: Pharmacy in jobs, news, schools

Fifty jobs are under threat at a private hospital in Ballykelly, County Londonderry.

The North West Independent Hospital said they had no alternative but to consider redundancies and restructuring.

In a statement the hospital said: “There has been a considerable downturn in work due to the reduction in referrals from the NHS Trusts.”

Health, health jobs, jobs, pharmacy, under threat

The hospital has said they are currently consulting with elected representatives and that discussions around the redundancy proposals are ongoing.

The hospital, which has 36 beds, offers both in-patient and out-patient facilities and have three operating theatres, X-Ray department, pharmacy and physiotherapy services.

SDLP East Derry MLA John Dallat has said that the Assembly must take action to prevent further job losses in the North-West.

He said that the East Derry area has been devastated by job losses: “The cutback in work going to the Ballykelly Clinic is a double whammy. It will result in job losses and, of course, mean that people on the hospital waiting lists will have to wait longer.”

50 health jobs under threat is a post from: Pharmacy in jobs, news, schools

Northern California, pharmacy, jobs, pharmacy, jobs, California, Kaiser, SEIU, pharmacy worker

“This new agreement means that not one pharmacy worker will lose her or his job,” Cinnamon Amenes, an SEIU worker Kaiser’s Vallejo medical center who served on the SEIU-UHW bargaining team, said in SEIU’s Sept. 29 statement. Kaiser, meanwhile, explained late Tuesday that it had agreed to the deal, which still requires ratification by union members, to gain more flexibility in how it assigns jobs and shifts to the affected Northern California pharmacy workers.

The Service Employees International Union’s Oakland-based United Healthcare Workers West unit said Tuesday it has reached a compromise agreement with Kaiser Permanente that will preserve 150 pharmacy jobs in Northern California that had been targeted for layoffs.

The union, which represents 150,000 hospital and other health care workers in the western United States, said a 15-member SEIU-UHW bargaining team reached an agreement with Kaiser last week that requires management and the union to agree jointly on any changes in how 1,100 SEIU pharmacy workers in Northern California are deployed.

Management also agreed to withdraw the 150 layoff notices it had sent to some of those workers, the union said, noting that the agreement will now be put to a ratification vote among the affected members.

In a statement late Tuesday, Kaiser said the agreement with SEIU, which involves pharmacy technicians and clerks, illustrates “exactly the kind of flexibility Kaiser Permanente needs.”

Henry Diaz, Kaiser’s director of employee and labor relations for Northern California, said it reached out to the union several weeks ago to find a compromise under which Kaiser could place the pharmacy technicians and clerks where they’re needed most, “by re-balancing schedules, shifts, and locations, reducing overtime, and flexing our staffing … to meet the seasonal demands of pharmacy operations.”

Kaiser confirmed in mid-August it would be cutting roughly 1,200 union jobs as it continued to struggle with enrollment losses and the tough economic environment. At the same time, Kaiser also confirmed published reports that another 650 jobs would be cut in Southern California.

SEIU said Sept. 29 that the new pharmacy agreement came after its members picketed Kaiser facilities statewide, protesting the Oakland-based health giant’s plans to slash more than 1,300 jobs in the Golden State.

UHW leaders say that more than 5,000 union members have participated in 14 pickets lines in the statewide campaign, and that additional protests are taking place this week: Tuesday in Orange County, Wednesday in Sacramento, and three sites on Thursday — Santa Rosa, Fresno and a second Orange County location.

Saved 150 Kaiser pharmacy jobs in Northern California – SEIU local is a post from: Pharmacy in jobs, news, schools

Under the terms of the proposals, two existing GP surgeries would combine, setting up a new premises complete with a pharmacy attached, the Worcester Standard reports.

New pharmacy jobs may become available in Worcestershire if plans for the creation of a medical centre get the green light.

A planning application has been submitted to the local council.

Pharmacy, medical centre, Worcestershire, pharmacy jobs, jobs, Worcestershire Royal Hospital
In addition, a business case has been put forward to NHS Worcestershire, which runs a number of medical centres, including Kidderminster Hospital, Worcestershire Royal Hospital and the Princess of Wales Community Hospital.

Dr Charlie Harris, a GP from one of the surgeries involved, said the process of finding a suitable location has taken over three years.

Meanwhile, fellow medical professional Dr Kelvin Laidlaw added: “We hope that if we secure funding for this new medical centre it will enable us to offer our patients a greater range of up to date medical services.”

Written by Mathew Horton

New pharmacy roles may become available in Worcestershire is a post from: Pharmacy in jobs, news, schools

“In the past, these certificate programs have been very successful, drawing community members from throughout Metro Detroit,” said Joan Stephens, director of Madonna’s Continuing Education program. “The majority of those enrolling are laid-off workers, stay-at-home mothers returning to the workforce, and people looking to switch careers.”

The fall schedule for Madonna University’s medical certificate programs is as follows:

Madonna offers training for health care jobs is a post from: Pharmacy in jobs, news, schools

Sunshine in Ohio isn’t optimal for solar panels, but a fledgling company called GreenField Solar Corp. had a bright idea — an array of aluminum mirrors that focus light onto extremely small and efficient solar cells.

Last year, the first of the 18-foot solar arrays was installed at NASA Glenn Research Center, and 10 of the devices are being installed in Mentor to help power its senior center.

GreenField Solar and a second company, Immediate Pharmaceutical Services Inc. in Avon Lake, plan to each create 200 jobs in the next 16 years thanks to performance tax credits from the state that were approved on Monday.

The more jobs they create, the more commercial activities taxes they will avoid, according to Robert Grevey, spokesman for the Ohio Tax Credit Authority. If they don’t keep their promises, the taxpayer isn’t out any money, Grevey said.

“It’s a performance-based incentive to defray the cost of doing business,” Grevey said.

GreenField plans to put its headquarters in the old Bayer Diagnostic building in Oberlin and expand its fledgling manufacturing facility on Root Road in North Ridgeville, said Glenn Hasman, chief financial officer.

“It concentrates the sun’s light,” Hasman said of the concentrating photovoltaic system. “We think this is very unique.”

Jim Latham, operations director, said each device costs about $10,000 and produces 1,500 watts — about enough to power half a house in Ohio. In Phoenix, where the sun’s rays pack a bigger punch, one would be enough to power a house, although the devices are not being marketed for residential use.

In time, Latham said the company hopes to sell each solar array for under $5,000 with a target price of $3 a watt — less than half the price per watt of conventional solar panels.

GreenField was awarded two 60 percent job creation tax credits, each for eight-year terms, in support of the company’s projects in Oberlin and North Ridgeville, according to the tax authority.

The value of the tax credits are estimated at a combined $850,000 over the term of the agreements, and the company would be required to maintain operations at the project sites for 16 years.

Greenfield developed and has begun manufacturing concentrating photovoltaic systems, which reduce costs associated with photovoltaic power. Its combined $9.8 million projects are expected to create 200 positions and retain three jobs.

Oberlin City Manager Eric Norenberg and North Ridgeville Mayor Dave Gillock were bullish on GreenField’s plans.

“We’re thrilled,” Norenberg said. “This says a lot about the community’s commitment to sustainability and renewable energy.”

Gillock called the tax credits awarded to GreenField “terrific” and described the company’s solar device as “a metal-tubed cactus with mirrors.”

Gillock said there’s plenty of room for growth at GreenField’s manufacturing facility on Root Road near Dreco Inc.

North Ridgeville obtained a state roadway grant for up to $400,000 to pay 50 percent of the cost of building a concrete roadway with storm sewers and sidewalks to the GreenField site, he said.

Meanwhile, Immediate Pharmaceutical Services was awarded a 50 percent job creation tax credit for an eight-year term in support of the company’s facility in Avon Lake, according to the state.

The value of the tax credit is estimated at $1 million over the term, and the company would be required to maintain operations at the project site for 16 years, according to the state.

Immediate Pharmaceutical Services operates a prescription mail service center and will provide Catalyst Health Solutions’ clients with an in-house mail service option. The $4.2 million project is expected to create 200 positions and retain 90 jobs.

Tom Garvey, the company’s president, did not return phone calls Tuesday seeking comment.

The projects were approved at the monthly meeting Monday of the Ohio Tax Credit Authority, a five-member independent board consisting of tax and economic development professionals that review and approve applications for state tax credit assistance.

Contact Cindy Leise at 329-7245 or cleise@chroniclet.com.

Solar power, pharmacy could mean jobs for Lorain County is a post from: Pharmacy in jobs, news, schools

Location: near Milwaukee, WI
Categories: healthcare.com/jobs/jobs/category/34″>Clinical
Website: http://www.staffpointe.com

Position Description

Director of Pharmacy job for Wisconsin. The Director of Pharmacy plans, directs, and monitors all activities of the department. Develops policies, procedures and processes to ensure that the pharmacy provides optimal pharmaceutical care and meets all legal, accreditation and certification requirements. Develops competency assessment programs that ensure all pharmacy staff performs at utmost efficiency and safety and complies with all applicable policies, codes and standards of the company. The Director is active in department activities, transdisciplinary team activities, and hospital activities to ensure individualized, patient-centered health care for all patient populations admitted to the hospital. Patient Population: Delivers direct patient care appropriate to the patients served. The ages of the patients served are adult 18-65 years of age and geriatric 65 and older. Supervision: Directs the activities and functions of the Pharmacy Department. Experience: Management experience required. Education: Graduate of an ACPE-accredited School of Pharmacy or equivalent. Licensure/Certification: Current Pharmacist license in state where currently practicing. Salary 100K-133K plus full benefits and relocation. Management experience required. If you are interested in this opportunity please email Jkramer@staffpointe.com. Or fax to 1-877-878-1970 attn: Julie. To expedite the process, please log in or sign up for your free account with StaffPointe at http://www.staffpointe.com/cand_new.asp. Please reference job# JK409

Director of Pharmacy Job for Wisconsin JK409N – StaffPointe, LLC is a post from: Pharmacy in jobs, news, schools