J&J job cuts kick off week

November 6, 2009 – 5:35 pm

It’s a mixed bag this week in pharma industry news (much like that sack of your kids hauled home from their trick-or-treating, for every KitKat, there’s a bag of candy corn). Some of the notable items: Johnson & Johnson announced the company would be reducing its headcount by 7% (and Eli Lilly also announced some layoffs in Indiana); now that Merck & Co. is the No. 2 drugmaker, the company is poised for future buys (but FDA would not accept Merck’s application for a combination cholesterol pill); GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer launched their joint HIV venture, ViiV Healthcare; Shire’s Gaucher disease drug was designated for priority review by FDA; AstraZeneca joins the pharma blogging sphere and put up its first Facebook page for Nexium (followed quickly by PharmaGossip’s Sidewiki); analysts are predicting widespread generic erosion in the atypical antipsychotic market; Amgen’s Vectibix missed its secondary endpoint in a colorectal cancer study; FDA added kidney warnings to Byetta’s label; Novartis is investing $1.25 billion in China; and Warner Chilcott has completed its acquisition of Procter & Gamble’s branded pharmaceuticals business.

Around and about …

If you want to know the speakers, presentations, and what people are Tweeting in anticipation of the FDA hearing on social media next week, go here to the comprehensive page set up by Ignite’s Fabio Gratton.

I blogged about my reaction to the presentation by the Coalition for Healthcare Communication at Med Ad News Insider. Besides the coalition, among some of the people sharing their presentations in advance are Jon Richman at Dose of Digital and John Mack at the Pharma Marketing Blog (who also points out that the FDA hearing won’t be deja vu all over again). Rich Meyer at World of DTC Marketing gives his view of the presentations thus far. Mark Senak at Eye on FDA says he will be covering the meeting. The meeting is also being discussed at the Ning site Social Pharmer.

Also at Med Ad News Insider this week: Steve Niles reviews Nielsen’s ranking of the most-recalled pharma DTC spots; and Janet Carlson of One Eleven Interactive guest blogs about a sampling conference.

Mark Senak at Eye on FDA comments on AstraZeneca’s new corporate blog; although he, like some others, have found the blog to be a bit dry and lacking engagement, “this blog, like all blogs, needs time to find a voice and identify its parameters.”

Mr. Senak also notes that FDA couldn’t seem to make up its mind whether to send Procter & Gamble a warning letter or not.

Jacob Goldstein at the Wall Street Journal Health Blog reports that more than half of academic researchers have pharma industry ties; analyzes the $98 million Omnicare settlement and the allegations that the company received kickbacks from J&J; reports that Kellogg is no longer claiming Rice Krispies boost kids’ immunity; wonders what does IMS Health do anyway; and looks for details on Merck’s 16,000 expected job cuts. Also at the Health Blog, James A. White says pharma is hiring (in China); and examines the $296 million Boston Scientific settlement.

A roundup of the news gathered by Ed Silverman at Pharmalot: Abbot is being probed over its marketing of Depakote; the Arkansas Supreme Court says there was nothing deceptive about the marketing for Nexium; Dutch authorities ban a batch of Prevnar because of infant deaths; the University of Miami has actually hired Charles Nemeroff; the U.S. Supreme Court is seeking comment from the Justice Department in the Pfizer Trovan case; and Pfizer must pay $75 million in damages over Prempro.

At Bnet, Jim Edwards examines the criticism over AstraZeneca’s new blog; reports that Pfizer is aiming for 30,900 layoffs through 2012; says the cost for Merck to lay off each rep has been about $112,000; looks at how drug advertising restrictions could actually benefit the industry; and talks about how AstraZeneca promoted Seroquel as effective as Haldol when company data said it wasn’t.

Dr. Barbara Martin at Pathophilia says chastise academic doctors for industry ties later, first promote diversity. “… if one reads the article, the most face-slapping result, IMSNHO, was the horrifying uniformity of the surveyed respondents: 72% were male, and 77% were white,” she says. “The ethnic/racial diversity, or obvious lack thereof, is flabbergasting.” (This reminds me, I met Reginald Ware, the CEO of blackdoctor.org, at ExL Pharma’s Digital Pharma conference. The site is a resource for African-American physicians and patients, and maybe pharma should start looking at the site’s physician experts as KOLs. Fair is fair.)

Thomas Sullivan at Policy and Medicine also looks at that same study and says the widespread participation of academic scientists in a relationship with pharma shows that there is value in that relationship for them.

The S&R Communications Blog looks at 300 reasons why CME is evolving and the top 30 CME Websites. Surprisingly, Medscape is not number 1.

Rich Meyer at World of DTC Marketing says Verilogue’s research about DTC is deeply flawed. He also guffaws at Merck CEO Dick Clark’s statement that the pharma industry needs to fix its trust deficit. “This is like someone on the Titanic saying, ‘I think we have a leak!’” Mr. Meyers says.

Feedback from the ePatient Connections conference in Philadelphia last week continues. Conference organizer Kevin Kruse posted his thoughts in two parts (first part is here); part 2 received quite a bit of comment in reactions to complaints about the Twitter “Trouble Table” and the use of Twitter at the conference in general. In response, I commented about the use of Twitter as a journalism tool; consultant Meredith Gould, who was at the Trouble Table, put up a blog post that fleshed out my line of thinking. (Earlier in October, Megan Blickley at the AdPharmBlog also talked about the need for journalists to learn how to use Twitter, but thinks students shouldn’t have to take classes for it. I’d have to disagree with her; just because the students know how to text message doesn’t mean that they can concisely and elegantly summarize the important parts of an event. Just like headline writing, it’s a skill you have to cultivate.) Suffice it to say, Tweeting live events is here to stay. I started Tweeting events at last year’s HBA Woman of the Year luncheon; I’ll be Tweeting from the annual HBA conference in San Francisco two weeks from now; and I’ll be Tweeting from BIO 2010 in Chicago (just as I did from BIO 2009 in Atlanta).

And the presentation from that conference everyone is still talking about is Dr. Val Jones’ Pecha Kucha, “A Tale of Two e-Patients,” based on two real-life people, done in limerick style (with the ultimate lesson that when it comes to matters of health, the wisdom of uninformed crowds is not very wise at all).

At the City of Paris blog, Lena Chow gives us another healthcare update from China.

Ricardo Carvajal at the FDA Law Blog shows us how a drug can be marketed as a dietary supplement; and Kurt R. Karst examines the Government Accountability Office’s report calling for FDA to enhance its oversight of drugs approved on the basis of surrogate endpoints.

Beaker’s Blog has its own takes on the ViiV Healthcare formation (”2009 seems to be the year of the ‘over-developed offspring’ in the life sciences industry. Much like the freakish 18lb babies born to diabetic mothers in third world countries, we’ve seen some biggies this year”) and the J&J job reductions (”While the news from J&J will dominate the day, one has to wonder how many other leading life sciences CEO’s are today looking in the mirror wondering if they should consider following suit with their own organizations?”).

Merrill Goozner at GoozNews looks at the Congressional Budget Office’s latest analysis of the House version of the healthcare reform bill.

GlaxoSmithKline’s More than Medicines Blog highlights the company’s relief efforts. Also, a nice look from the vaccines division about the company’s malaria vaccine in development.

Sally Church at the Pharma Strategy Blog analyzes the Vectibix study results. “My own view is that the negative OS result is likely to be more of a death knell in newly diagnosed colorectal cancer for Amgen, but time will tell,” she says.

Colette Pilkus at R&D Directions Insider talks with Acceleron about its approach in cancer treatment research.