Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Three step formula to long-term Pharma profits: Step 1: Create revolutionary medicine. Step 2: Patent the medicine to collect in the profits. Step 3: When the patent expires, combine the drug with another in order to extend its patent life and keep profits high. Most people believe that Step 1 and 2 are ok. The…
SuperBrands ranks the top brands: Overall Pharmaceuticals: OTC Pharmaceuticals: Prescription
Scientific American has an article ranking countries based on how conducive they are to biotechnology innovation. The criteria are based on what is best for biotech firms and not necessary what is best for society. The rankings are based on the following metrics: Intellectual Property (IP) protection. In this ranking, more IP protection is considered better. For…
Medicare Part D decreased the number of seniors without drug coverage. In 2006 only 7% of seniors lacked drug coverage compared to 24% in 2004.
New drugs are (typically) more expensive than old drugs. If a hospital decides to use the latest drug technology, this will increase costs…right? This may not always be the case. If new drugs are more effective than old drugs, then giving patients the new expensive drug may cuts costs in other areas (such as…
Let’s say that you’re interested in running a Markov model, but are not mathematically savvy. Gijs Hubben has come up with a solution in his Basecase website. The online software allows you to customize the drug costs, medical assessment and procedure costs associated with the disease. If available, you can use other academic models as…
You have just done a study comparing the cost-effectiveness of drug A and drug B. Should you just rest on these laurels or is further research on drug B warranted. Decision Modelling for Health Economic Evaluation claims that there are 3 criteria that should determine whether or not you decide to collect more information: The…
What determines which NSAIDs physicians prescribe? According to the Naik et al. (2009) the following six factors are the most important: Direct Marketing by Pharmaceutical Reps. Patient requests for medication, often driven by direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising. Habits formed during medical school. Often, these habits are influenced by drug rep visits while the physician was in…
Currently the FDA requires that drug companies conduct 3 phases in order to secure the approval of a pharmaceutical. These are: Phase I. These are smaller (20-80 participants), clinical trials which determine a drug’s safety and pharmacologic properties among healthy volunteers. Phase II. This phase tests a drug’s efficacy and optimal dosage. Typically 100-300 individuals…
When and how regulators allow drugs to come to market is an complex and fascinating process. In order for drugs to be sold to the public, they must gain approval by the FDA (U.S.) or EMEA (EU). This involves multiple stages of clinical trials, often costing many millions of dollars. The uses these trials to…