A roundup for a rainy Friday …

June 5, 2009 – 4:25 pm

Here in my corner of the Northeast, it’s been rainy and the pharma news has been springing up like the well-watered weeds. Among other things: FDA made a bid for being more transparent with a task force and a blog; candidates backed by Carl Icahn and Eastbourne Capital Management won two seats on the Amylin board; a scientist involved in early-stage clinical trials for prasugrel has joined Public Citizen in petitioning FDA to halt its review of the drug; a New Jersey judge has ruled that anonymous posts from Cafe Pharma can be used in a lawsuit against Schering-Plough; Roche’s acquisition of Genentech may have been a smidge too hasty; and Merck’s rolofylline did not meet primary or secondary endpoints in a pivotal clinical trial for heart failure.

Around and about …

Hmmmm. According to Jim Edwards at Bnet, your fashion sense (or lack thereof) could have made you a candidate for Zyprexa marketing tactics, circa 2000. In other news, he comments on the petition from Public Citizen for prasugrel. “Even if prasugrel is approved, Bristol-Myers Squibb – which markets the dominant brand, Plavix – couldn’t have asked for a more problematic launch,” he says. And Mr. Edwards looks at the ruling to allow anonymous Cafe Pharma posts in the Schering-Plough lawsuit. “BNET has noted before that although Cafe Pharma posts tend to be wildly inaccurate, they do correctly signal the hotbutton issues within companies,” he writes.

Of course, the anonymous blogger at Shearlings Got Plowed was rather giddy with glee over the ruling.

In addition, Mr. Edwards gives us a glimpse at the amenities of the Gulfstream jets that Pfizer is getting rid of. Beaker’s Blog also has the news of the Pfizer jet sale.

Mark Senak at Eye on FDA commented on the agency’s move toward transparency. “Is transparency a problem at FDA? ” he asks. “Yes - FDA’s embarrassing Plan B fiasco demonstrated that much. Is it the only problem at FDA? No. But it is probably a good place to start.”

Eileen O’Brien of Compass Healthcare Communications guest-blogs on Pharma 2.0 about why mobile marketing matters to pharma. I used to work with Eileen, until she went to Compass, and she’s a smart person. Go read her insights!

Bob Ehrlich at DTC-in-Perspective says DTC planning in the future should include planning for uncertainty. “Drug companies should all be spending a lot more time and manpower considering the ‘what if’ scenarios,” Mr. Ehrlich says. “In fact I would dedicate a senior DTC marketer at each company to write an uncertainty plan for each brand.”

At the Carlat Psychiatry Blog, Dr. Daniel Carlat denounces the connections between Harvard Medical School and the CME company Pri-Med and examines what he calls the Pri-Med empire; he also comments on Emory University’s updated ethics policy, which prevents any faculty member from speaking on behalf of drug companies and bans industry gifts.

Here’s look at what some of my editors have been up to. At the R&D Directions Insider Blog, Michael Christel says the Johnson & Johnson-Cougar Biotech deal has teeth, examines the U.S. move to spend $1 billion for a swine flu vaccine, and looks at individual companies’ efforts in creating a vaccine; he also reports from the Biomarker World Congress in Philadelphia, where attendees debated what are the regulatory and policy barriers to personalized medicine, and comments on FDA’s efforts to become more transparent. “Talk about clinical trial reform,” he says. This one might be a doozy if it has legs.”

Also at the R&D Directions Insider Blog, Colette Pilkus reports on the Public Citizen petition to FDA against prasugrel’s approval, and looks at a study that demonstrates a commonly used diabetes medicine may improve cancer treatment.

At the Med Ad News Insider Blog, Joshua Slatko analyzes the most recent Pri-Med study that shows how the economic squeeze has altered the behavior of doctors and patients; and Gina Monari details the launch of Medscape for iPhone and iPod Touch.

At World of DTC Marketing, Rich Meyer talks about how women use social media platforms to share everything with each other and how DTC marketers can use this trend; calls for the industry and government to educate patients about drug-assistance programs; debates who should determine if a drug’s risk is acceptable; and wonders if cancer could be the next DTC frontier.

Cole Werble at the In Vivo Blog looks at how Sen. Byron Dorgan’s reintroduction of reimportation legislation puts a speed bump into Rep. Henry Waxman’s journey in getting FDA the authority to oversee the development and marketing of tobacco products. “If Dorgan can link drug reimportation onto the tobacco bill, Waxman may be faced with having to accept a provision he has fought for years if he wants to move forward with one of his top public health priorities,” Mr. Werble writes

At DrugWonks, Dr. Robert Goldberg was irked that the specter of reimportation was haunting Congress once again.

Also at DrugWonks, Caroline Patton disputes the story that medical bills cause half of all bankruptcies.

Merrill Goozner of GoozNews wrote about the same study on medical bankruptcies here.

Fard Johnmar of Healthcare Vox lists four digital activities pharma must engage in now or next year. This was in response to Jonathan Richman of Dose of Digital’s post about 10 digital marketing ideas pharma companies will never try, but should.

Sally Church at the Pharma Strategy Blog, who was at ASCO last week, writes about IGF-1R inhibitors in cancer and the companies that are developing these therapies. She also shares her story of how she beat malignant cancer as a child (I love that her physicians didn’t try to talk down to her and let her see the scans of her adrenal gland/kidney tumor and explained them to her).

At City of Paris, Lena Chow has a fascinating post about how policy changes in China aim to revitalize traditional Chinese medicine.

The anonymous blogger at Clinical Psychology and and Psychiatry: A Closer Look, examines the pseudoscience claims of Daniel Amen on why Lamar Odom plays inconsistently.

Who says science can’t be fun or rhythmically catchy? I wish I’d had these raps handy for high school and college biology classes. My favorite is “Synaptic Cleft.” Using a scooter and popping to demonstrate how a neuronal signal goes? Brilliant! And there’s a cameo from the eminent Russell Fernald of Stanford.