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POETS OF THE PHARMA SALTMINES
USUALLY THE FIRST WRITING YOU DO after you’ve been laid off is to update your resume. However, one recently downsized member of Merck’s shrunken field force (see ChroMo #501) turned instead to the solace of composing poetry, which they last week posted to the CafePharma.com web site. The rhymin’ rep is plainly no competition for Robert W. Service, but it’s so unique to find a literary bag-carrier that we thought we’d share with you our favorite couplets. And here they are: “Oh it was a nice run, Merck once had great style,/But then along came the results of the ENHANCE Trial,/I thought a nice long career was gonna be mine,/Now I’m riding my bike to the unemployment line./Maybe this change will be for the better,/At least I won’t have to hear about the next Unapprovable Letter.”
CLEANUP IN AISLE 12
JUST LIKE ANY ENDURING ENTERTAINER, a good corporation will reinvent itself periodically—so it may be far from an insult to call Biovail the Madonna of drugmakers. Last week the company’s new boss, Bill Wells, announced a plan to focus on niche CNS disorders, seemingly steering away from Biovail’s traditional competency in extended-release delivery systems. Mr. Wells will drop $600 million on R&D through 2012, in an effort to noodle out new Txs for MS and Parkinson’s. That’s barely chump change, compared to most Big Pharma research war-chests, but Mr. Wells just arrived in the drugbiz from the grocery industry, where a coupon for 25 cents off on a bag of Oreos is likely considered a big deal. He also plans to shutter the company’s two manufacturing plants in Puerto Rico. Mr. Wells, again following the Madonna model, arrived with his entourage, in the form of five new board appointees, including Wyeth’s former exec vee-pee of global business, Robert N. Power. This explains why Mr. Wells was overheard singing, “I got the Power,” but the events induced a migraine for company founder Eugene Melnyk, who owns about one-eighth of all Biovail stock. Mr. Melnyk responded to the developments by filing a complaint with US securities regulators, objecting that Mr. Wells was allegedly recruited without a proper search, and complaining about a payment of $3.44 million made to Mr. Wells to lure him over from Loblaw’s, the struggling supermarket chain where he was CFO. Of course, that sum represents only half the annual salary of Mr. Melnyk’s preferred employee, Ottawa Senators defenseman Wade Redden—but, to borrow a common expression from the grocery trade, it’s still a lot of lettuce.
THINK OF US MORE AS FRIENDS-WITH-PILLS
MERCK’s former kingpin, Roy Vagelos, knows exactly why the reputation of the drugbiz has suffered: It stems, he says, from the high prices charged for breakthrough therapies. Referring to an unnamed colorectal Ca Tx which costs $50,000 per regimen (and extends a patient’s survival for four months), Mr. Vagelos last week told a meeting of medical journal executives that such pricing “will bring about [US] government price controls which will be devastating.” He says the real consequence of high drug prices is damage to the industry’s reputation: “In the past, because of [our] enormous contributions, the industry was held in high regard. The drug industry dropped close to the bottom, along with gas companies and the cigarette industry. The high cost of drugs entered into that.” Possibly with that thought in mind, Pfizer’s Canadian unit appears to be encouraging consumers to regard the drugmaker as something, er, other than a drug company. Announcing the results of a new survey of 4,000 Canadians, public affairs vee-pee John Helou says: “In addition to offering innovative medicines, Pfizer believes it’s also our responsibility to help encourage healthy lifestyles and share information that goes beyond medication.” Ninety per cent of those polled said they believe good health “is about more than medication.” The company is launching a TV campaign and web site intended to encourage healthy lifestyles. Hmmm. Wouldn’t a more valid first step toward attaining a healthy lifestyle start with shooting your TV, and then tossing your computer over the balcony?
M&A MAELSTROM (CONT’D)
STIEFEL LABORATORIES, the privately held skincare house, last week bought ABR Invent, a French maker of a line of dermal fillers. CEO Charles Stiefel says the company will apply for regulatory approvals of the Atlean products, which are currently available in France and Italy.
FINGER-POINTING TIME
TWO STATESIDE HEALTH POLICY gadfly groups latched onto a new pair of controversies last week, finding fault with drugmakers on both occasions. The Integrity in Science group said more than half the 20 editors currently working on the next Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) compendium are closely associated with manufacturers of CNS Rxs. DSM-V, which will become the standard for diagnosing psychiatric conditions, will be published in 2012. Dr. Carolyn B. Robinowitz, prexy of the American Psychiatric Association, denies charges that the links between the editors and industry are improper: “We have made every effort to ensure that DSM-V will be based on the best and latest scientific research, and to eliminate conflicts of interest in its development.” Elsewhere, the group known as Public Citizen wants the US FDA to halt sales of transdermal contraceptive norelgestromin/estradiol (Ortho Evra, Janssen-Ortho), citing CV side-effects. A spokesman for Ortho responds: “Ortho Evra is a safe and effective hormonal birth control option for women when used according to its label.”
IT WAS A GOOD WEEK FOR…
BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB kingpin James Cornelius, who celebrated the divesture of his ConvaTec wound care business (see ChronicleMIDWEEK 05/07/08 ) by treating himself to 100,000 shares of BMS stock, at a cost of $2.3 million. In doing so, Corny followed Schering-Plough helmer Fred Hassan, who loaded up on $2 million worth of his outfit’s shares a couple of weeks back.
IT WAS A BAD WEEK FOR…
MAKERS OF STATINS. Business Week, the stateside economic weekly which has 4.9 million readers, devoted its cover to the question, “Do Cholesterol Drugs Do Any Good?” The magazine’s reporting strongly suggests they often do not. Quoted in the lengthy piece is Dr. Jerome R. Hoffman of UCLA’s medical faculty, who raises an uncomfortable query: “What if you put 250 people in a room and told them they would each pay $1,000 a year for a drug they would have to take every day, that many would get diarrhea and muscle pain, and that 249 would have no benefit? And that they could do just as well by exercising? How many would take that?”
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“FOR THE FIRST TIME in history, the [pharma] industry will have negative growth in 2011.” —Alexis de Rosnay, head of global healthcare at the Lehman Brothers investment firm
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