Parata Systems and D&K Healthcare Resources Partner to Bring Next-Generation Dispensing Solution to Community Pharmacies
Thursday July 31, 4:15 pm ET

D&K Healthcare Exclusive Distributor in 23-State Service Region for Parata's Next-Generation Robotic Dispensing Solution

Damn! No wonder the pharmacists have seemed so grumpy lately! Things are just going from bad to worse for them. First neighborhood drug stores are stomped out by superstore-pharmacies, now this. Maybe they'll catch less abuse from angry customers, like when insurance/bureacracy screws them over, its the person at the counter that catches flak. Oh well.

But critics of the bioterror campaign respond that even if there is some secondary good to be derived from that effort, it's still far from the most efficient way to patch a public health system turned decrepit and outdated.
''What a stupid way to develop things,'' BU's Ozonoff said. ''That's like saying, `What I'd like is a nice orange drink called Tang, so let's design a space system so we can have Tang.' ''
This story ran on page C4 of the Boston Globe on 7/29/2003.

Welcome to the monkey house, Mr Ozonoff! I love his analogy, but I think it speaks to the way humans approach most of our problems most of the time.

I found an interesting website from a group called the Galen Institute. Their motto is:
A VISION FOR CONSUMER-DRIVEN HEALTH CARE REFORM "The market is distorted by a tax policy that is mistargeted, miscalibrated, and open-ended. This tax policy provides generous benefits to those who have higher incomes and receive health insurance through the workplace. Yet it offers little or no assistance to those at the lower end of the income scale." They sound like they might have their hearts in the right place, but the site is suspiciously slick, the design is decidedly "corporate." There is a lot of double-talk about "choice" and the "free-markets" when the main problem is the number of people not getting healthcare at all. Perhaps the institute will be effective lobbying, but it seems to me that the only way to comprehensive health care is through government programs. Public health is too big a problem and not profitable enough to let "markets" dictate policy.

Shares of Elan fall 25% on July 25, after a setback in Antegren drug trial for Crohn's Disease, a painful gastrointestinal disorder. Antegren was jointly developed by Elan of Ireland and Biogen of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Biogen shares fell $2.48 to $38.70 on Nasdaq, but Elan of Ireland can not absorb the setback nearly as well. Biogen is confident in Ategren's promise as a treatment for multiple sclerosis. Elan also had a failure with an Alzheimer's vaccine, which caused dangerous brain swelling in test subjects. It is interesting how the very big, very profitable Biogen can take such a setback in stride while it is disasterous for its smaller, partner company.

Pharmaceutical giant Roche agreed to buy Igen International for 1.26 billion dollars. Igen patented an amino acid-based technology for diatgnostic tests. "Igen won a 505 million dollar judgement against Roche. In July the court reduced the amount to $19 million, but gave Igen the right to cancel the license. This right apparently gave Roche the incentive to buy the Maryland company outright. Supposedly there is a plan to sell most of the company's assets back to the shareholders, although this is counterintuitive, especially in light of speculation that Roche overpaid for the investment in Igen's technology.

At News.ft.com Special Reports
Healthcare: Pharmaceuticals
The pharmaceuticals industry is having to rethink the way it creates its own growth products. The bigger companies are forced to make alliances with smaller colleagues to acquire new drugs but at the same time the industry faces a squeeze on prices. Overshadowing this process is the industry's dominance of the moral high ground as it grapples with the problem of how poor people can afford expensive treatments.



ContentsFT.com / Healthcare 2003

Alan Sager and Deborah Socolar run a Health Reform Program at Boston University
They also have a lot of good information at dcc2.bumc.bu.edu/hs/ushealthreform.htm

This blogger interface seems nice, Radiouserland is going to have to offer a lot to compete!

Forbes.com has an interesing article that starts: "The $400 billion Medicare prescription drug benefit making its way through both houses of Congress has a somewhat surprising backer: the drug industry. Big pharma sees an opportunity to cool the heated criticism about the high cost of branded medicines and at the same time give the 40 million Americans on Medicare more access to its medicines, thereby increasing sales. "

www.business.com/directory/pharmaceuticals_and_biotechnology/news/
The major motivation for the press to be comprehensive or accurate is when consumers demand information for the purpose of making money. Money makes money. Seeing through political propaganda relatively easy: http://phrma.org, but I've found for raw information, the business press is most useful.

Yesterday the Financial Times contains an article which mentions "lingering doubts about whether Britsol Myers has been a bad seed in corporate America. There was one section in particular which avoids placing blame by complicating sentence structure and using the passive voice.
Inventory and accounting problems led the company to restate $2.5bn in slaes and $1bn in profits (I'm not sure if this is American billions, x,000,000,000 I assume it is) for the years 1999-2002. Bristol says that some of its managers pushed stock levels to unsustainable levels using sales incentives. They did this so that it would look like large quantities of its drugs were sold when they simply been shipped to distributers.

I've discovered Chomsky from "Manufacturing Consent" DVD. The pharmacuetical industry needs to be more carefully monitored, so I might as well try to help.