No simple generic answer
Unlike pills and capsules that are brewed from a mixture of chemicals, injectable therapies like hormones and genetically engineered proteins are not covered by the Hatch-Waxman Act, the 1984 law that laid the foundation for the nation’s generic drug industry. That has left brand-name biotech manufacturers with the hope of monopolies well into the future.
Antibacterials: a dying trade
: Despite strong worldwide demand for effective antibacterial products, sustaining growth within this segment will become a challenging task for major pharmaceutical companies. Currently only six marketed drugs have sales of greater than $1 billion and by 2011, 12 out of 29 key products will face patent expiry. A relatively sparse R&D pipeline will do little to replace older products.
Pfizer’s Quest to Stay Ahead of the Pack
The drugmaker has been a stable holding in unstable times. Now, though, it faces big challenges from rivals to its Lipitor and Viagra
Can Your Genomics Work Contribute to Biodefense
Three years ago, Luis Villarreal, a virologist at the University of California, Irvine, came up with the idea of using in vitro gene activation by PCR to study the proteome of a virus in hopes of developing a high-throughput platform for identifying new vaccines.
Villarreal and his collaborators at the university saw infectious disease as their primary target, but after the anthrax attacks in late 2001 they realized that their work might just as easily apply to tackling bioterror agents…
Yali Friedman lives in Washington, DC and is author of Building Biotechnology and other books; founder of DrugPatentWatch; and chief editor of the Journal of Commercial Biotechnology.
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