Reader feedback: Cheap drugs for poor nations, the art of the drug deal
I’m at work on a longer post that hasn’t yet come together, so I thought I’d pull an old dodge favored by daily newspaper columnists and respond to some reader comments instead. Fortunately for me, both comments left here in the past day or so have been thought-provoking — maybe there’s hope for the Internet after all.
With respect to the tussle over patents and drug pricing in Thailand, Gal Josefsberg wrote:
I’m not sure how they expect… Continue Reading
Roundup: Thailand vs. Big Pharma, kids with heart disease, biomedical research funding, and more
Arm wrestling over drug patents – Three months ago, the military government running Thailand informed Abbott Laboratories that it intended to break the company’s patents on several expensive drugs, including the HIV protease inhibitor Kaletra, thus allowing the manufacture or import of cheaper knockoffs. Abbott responded by dropping its plans to bring newer drugs, including a heat-resistant version of Kaletra, to Thailand, and the pharma and the junta have been locked in a standoff ever since…. Continue Reading
How drug reps do that thing they do
Two fascinating papers in the open-access journal PLoS Medicine turn a spotlight on the practice of “detailing” — the office visits that drug-industry salespeople use to flatter and manipulate their way into the good graces of the doctors they want to influence.
The first and most eye-opening paper is co-authored by Shahram Ahari, a former Eli Lilly sales rep, and Adriane Fugh-Berman, a Georgetown University professor who researches drug marketing. Together, the two outline a variety of… Continue Reading