On April 1, CBS will air a “60 Minutes” expose on the impact of the drug lobby on Congress. CBS spoke with Congressmen Walter Jones, Dan Burton and others about the legislative session that voted the Medicare prescription drug bill into law. An excerpt:
“I’ve been in politics for 22 years and it was [...]

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Drug reps are having a harder and harder time making ends meet. Big Pharma has flooded the market with reps trying to push their product, and they are now paying the price. From CNN Money via Kevin M.D. and PharmaGossip:
Big Pharma, already reeling from mounting competition and tightening government regulations, now has another problem [...]

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David Janeson owns Jandrugs, a leading Canadian online pharmacy that is part of the eDrugSearch.com database. I interviewed David recently about his business and some of the common misperceptions about Canadian pharmacies.
Cary: David, what percentage of your orders come from U.S. citizens?
David: Virtually all of our business at Jandrugs is from Americans. As [...]

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From the Chicago Tribune:
Given the option of living with pain or an increased heart attack risk, some Baby Boomers are assuming the risk and going back to a drug still considered potentially dangerous by the government. Two years after Vioxx and other powerful arthritis pain fighters were linked to cardiovascular trouble, there is a [...]

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Last week, I had the opportunity to discuss eDrugSearch.com on Pharma Marketing Talk, an online talk show with John Mack, author of the Pharma Marketing Blog and The Pharma Blogosphere. I described some of the reasons I decided to start eDrugSearch.com and some of the new features we’re planning for the site.
Find out [...]

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From the New York Times:
Expert advisers to the government who receive money from a drug or device maker would be barred for the first time from voting on whether to approve that company’s products under new rules announced Wednesday for the F.D.A.’s powerful advisory committees.
Indeed, such doctors who receive more than $50,000 from a company [...]

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From Brian Skoloff of the Associated Press:
A 4-foot-tall, overweight, alcoholic, heroin-addicted airline pilot placed an order on a Web site for steroids, Ritalin and methadone, noting in the online questionnaire that he wanted “to get high to fly.” Two days later, the package arrived.
Unfortunately for Dr. David Stephenson, who ran the site from his [...]

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If you’re wondering who to cheer for during Friday’s Miss USA pageant, we offer you Mia Heaston – representing Illinois and the pharmaceutical industry.
Yep — Mia’s a pharma sales rep. And surprisingly, from our quick scan of the bios of the 51 Miss USA contestants (we didn’t spend any time ogling the swimsuit pictures, [...]

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Last week at the Drug Discovery and Technology Summit in London, Simon Campbell, Pfizer Europe’s former president of R&D, criticized “mega-pharmacies” for sucking the creativity and innovation out of the industry. “You can’t industrialize drug discovery,” said Campbell. “It’s a personal experience, not a mechanical process, and that needs to be appreciated.”
He goes on to [...]

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From The Washington Post:
Texas lawmakers are fighting to block the governor’s order requiring that sixth-grade girls be vaccinated against the virus that causes cervical cancer, with the House giving key approval to a bill to make the shots strictly voluntary.
Gov. Rick Perry’s executive order has inflamed conservatives who say it contradicts Texas’ abstinence-only sexual [...]

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