big pharma Archives - Page 3 of 4

Holding Big Pharma Accountable for Opioid Crisis

October 3, 2017

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), every day more than 90 Americans die after overdosing on opioids.

“The misuse of and addiction to opioids, including prescription pain relievers, heroin, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, is a serious national crisis that affects public health as well as social and economic welfare,” the NIDA website claims. As well, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the total economic burden of prescription opioid misuse alone in the United States is $78.5 billion a year, including the costs of healthcare, lost productivity, addiction treatment, and criminal justice involvement.

Fighting the Opioid Epidemic by Targeting Big Pharma’s Bottom Line

October 3, 2017

Opioids now kill over 100 Americans every day. In a single year, opioids kill more Americans than died in the entire Vietnam and Iraq Wars. And while the underground drug trade is fueling this epidemic of medicalized self-destruction, the flow of black-market opioids is inseparable from its above-ground counterpart—the pharmaceutical companies that peddle the legal and FDA-approved pain killers like OxyContin and Vicodin. And now workers on the front lines of this crisis are challenging the nation’s biggest pushers to stop pumping deadly drugs into their neighborhoods.

Potential changes concern pharma companies

October 2, 2017

Proposed changes to the way Canada puts a ceiling on patented drug prices have put pharmaceutical companies on alert, says an Ottawa intellectual property lawyer.

Earlier this summer, Health Canada released a consultation report entitled “Protecting Canadians from Excessive Drug Prices” that included a number of suggested amendments to the federal Patented Medicines Regulations, which are in turn used by the Patented Medicines Prices Review Board to determine the level at which a drug’s price crosses the threshold to become excessive.

Ontario to force pharmaceutical companies to disclose money paid to doctors

September 28, 2017

Ontario is planning to force pharmaceutical companies to divulge their payments to doctors, a major step toward transparency in the otherwise murky world of medical marketing in Canada.

Legislation the Liberals are expected to introduce on Wednesday would make Ontario the first province in which anyone could search a central online database to see if health-care providers or medical organizations have received money from the makers of drugs or medical devices.

Health Canada ‘gutting’ law to detect dangerous medicines, with possible deadly consequences, advocates warn

September 27, 2017

After Vanessa’s Law successfully navigated Parliament and became the law of the land, then Conservative MP Terence Young felt a sense of relief, able to breathe believing he’d finally won his 14-year battle.

Parliament had passed, without a single dissenting vote, a government bill that had started as his own; a bill to protect patients from potentially dangerous prescription drugs – to protect Canadians from suffering the agony his family suffered when his daughter, 15-year-old Vanessa, died of a heart attack after taking a prescribed drug.

But now, almost three years later, Young’s battle continues as a handful of measures he says are critical to the bill’s efficacy have yet to be enacted.

Red more at Global News

Revival of Gilead Whistleblower’s Lawsuit Should Stoke Fear In Big Pharma

September 26, 2017

The pharmaceutical industry often operates like the rules don’t apply to it. Over the years, prescription drug manufacturers have been slapped with billions in fines after they are caught overstepping regulatory limits meant to protect patients and taxpayers. The most significant cases were initiated by whistleblowers, and thanks to them, greater transparency has been forced on the industry.

In the most recent blow, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision has revived a whistleblower lawsuit against Gilead Sciences. The ruling has put Big Pharma on edge. A federal district court had dismissed the case in 2015, saying the complaint had failed to state a claim that violated the False Clams Act.

War on drugs: big pharma fights NHS bill curbs

September 19, 2017

With NHS budgets under pressure and medicine prices inexorably going up, something had to give.

Nevertheless, the decision by some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical firms this summer to challenge public sector powers to limit drug bills in the High Court still raised eyebrows.

The action brought by trade body the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) divided the sector, with Britain’s two largest drug makers, FTSE 100 giants GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, distancing themselves from a move driven by overseas conglomerates.

Lawsuits on behalf of Avoyelles, Rapides sheriffs target ‘Big Pharma’

September 18, 2017

Lawsuits filed Monday on behalf of the Avoyelles and Rapides sheriffs are among the first in Louisiana against pharmaceutical companies that attorneys say bear blame for an opioid crisis that public entities are ill equipped to handle.

The Lafayette law firm Laborde Earles filed the 73-page lawsuits Monday morning in district courts. Both name companies and individuals and include a host of allegations, including that the defendants “knew that, barring exceptional circumstances, opioids are too addictive and too debilitating for long-term use for chronic non-cancer pain lasting three months or longer.”

Charities Refuse Donations From Cannabis Companies While Accepting Money from Big Pharma

September 18, 2017

You’d think a charity would accept donations from any source they could. That’s basically the point of a charity. But according to Forbes, charities are hesitant to take donations from cannabis companies, even in states where it’s legal.

Forbes recently published a story about Organa Brands, one of the largest vape companies in America. Due to their immense success, the company wanted to give back to the community. Unfortunately, they were turned down from a handful of charities including Wounded Warriors, the American Cancer Society and the Children’s Hospital Foundation. The company was not happy with those refusals.

Big Pharma Company Caught Faking Cancer Patients to Sell Deadly Opioid Drugs

September 16, 2017

It’s no secret that many pharmaceutical drugs have life-threatening side effects, but oftentimes they aren’t discussed when the medication is being prescribed to the patient. It’s important that, when taking any pharmaceutical drug, you weigh the pros and cons of taking the drug, because when it comes to pharmaceuticals, the benefits don’t always outweigh the risks.

Sometimes, the wrong drugs will be prescribed to patients, but it isn’t very often that Big Pharma companies get caught literally conspiring to do so. Pharmaceutical company Insys Therapeutics is currently under investigation for making it look like patients had cancer (when they did not) so they could sell their opioid drugs to them.