News: Update

Medical Marketing and Media, Nov 2005

The FDA will hold public hearings on communication of drug safety information Dec. 7-8 in Washington, D.C. The agency will look at the effectiveness of, and ways to, improve patient and healthcare information sheets, along with public health advisories, press releases, CDER educational campaigns and the CDER Web site.

PhRMA was red-faced after it emerged that the group had explored contracting a novelist to pen a thriller aimed at women in which terrorists exploit Canadian drugs to poison Americans. The innovative scheme was revealed by New York Daily News gossip Lloyd Grove.

Serono will pay more than $700 million to the federal government to settle charges the firm illegally marketed its AIDS drug Serostim by developing a fraudulent medical test to increase demand for the drug and sending doctors on all-expenses paid vacations to France in exchange for writing prescriptions. The settlement marks the third-largest healthcare fraud recovery in the history of the U.S. Justice Department.

GlaxoSmithKline said new study data found a 60 mg. low-dose version of its weight-loss medication Xenical (orlistat) to be safe, effective and tolerable in overweight people. Glaxo bought U.S. marketing rights for Xenical from Roche earlier this year and plans to market an OTC version of the drug.