The Food and Drug Administration will create an independent board to more aggressively monitor the safety of drugs on the market as part of an effort to restore public confidence in the nation’s prescription drug supply, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt announced yesterday.
The pharmaceutical industry was traumatized in 2004 when Merck had to withdraw its $2.5 billion COX-2 inhibitor Vioxx from the market due to potentially lethal side effects. Pharmaceutical companies are already struggling to deal with increasing generic competition and stringent approval standards in an effective manner. Will the aftereffects of a disastrous 2004 hamper industry growth in the years to come?
Genetically Modified IP Launched
A paper appearing in this week’s edition of Nature is antiseptically entitled: ‘Gene transfer to plants by diverse species of bacteria.’ But the information that lies within may herald a revolution in biology.
From the laboratory to the investment fund
How two Chilean scientists turned a graduate thesis into a business that is helping salmon and ham producers
Biotech: A Big Future Behind It?
Despite a bumpy 2004, the rush to market hasn’t abated. The key for this crop of newcomers: Holding investors’ attention?
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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