Long Island Medical Briefs: February 1, 2008

OTC distributor builds business by buying drug maker

Westbury-based PL Developments said it has acquired PAL Laboratories, a Miami-based pharmaceutical manufacturing company for a total of $18.2 million.

PLD purchases over-the-counter medications and packages them for nationwide retailers, including Wal-Mart, CVS, Costco, Duane Reed and Walgreen's, and the acquisition is a move to expand the company's business, said John Francis, senior vice president of sales and global business development. The company aims to double its business within the next five years as a result of the expansion.

The deal was completed Dec. 26. PLD had already offered to buy the company when its parent company, Pharmed, filed for bankruptcy in October.

PLD had bid $15.6 million for the lab and had agreed to assume $2.6 million in liabilities, Francis said. PLD also has a consulting agreement with PAL's former owners.

PLD is rebranding PAL Laboratories as Avema Pharma Solutions, and plans to continue manufacturing PAL's primary product line - nutritional supplements, Francis said. Avema is in the process of expanding this product line, he added.

The privately owned company is also looking at developing dozens of different over-the-counter medications that can be manufactured at Avema, then packaged and sold to retailers by PLD, Francis said.

Development of the new medications will not conflict with the types of medications the company already purchases.

However, development initially will be restricted to medications that can be made without FDA approval, such as acetaminophen (the generic version of Tylenol) or laxative products, Francis said. The company has long-term plans to develop FDA-approved over-the- counter products.

Medicare wants seniors to speak up

Seniors may grumble every once in a while about aches and pains - but Suffolk and Nassau seniors do little complaining about the quality of care they receive, according to a recently published report.

IPRO, a New York-based nonprofit that contracts with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to improve the quality of health care for Medicare participants, released its first "New York State Medicare Quality of Care Complaints Report Card" in December, and the results worry them.

Only 343 complaints were filed in New York last year, but those complaints represented less than 0.01 percent of the total Medicare population of almost 3 million people. Nassau and Suffolk counties together filed just 75 complaints last year.

IPRO is worried that quality-of-care complaints are just not being reported, and seniors and their families don't know they have a right to file a complaint, said Ted Will, chief executive of IPRO.

Examples of quality-of-care concerns seniors can report are receiving the wrong medication or the wrong surgery or sustaining an injury from a fall, said Clare Bradley, senior vice president and chief medical officer for IPRO.

The organization is encouraging those with complaints or concerns to visit its Web site, www.yourhealthyourvoice.org, or to report it to the Department of Health.

Full yet? For some, it's hard to tell

Brookhaven National Laboratory scientists said they have identified brain circuits that motivate the desire to overeat by studying how the brain responds to fullness messages from the stomach.

They said treatments targeting the circuits may prove useful in controlling chronic overeating.

Researchers simulated feelings of fullness with an expandable balloon and studied areas of the brain that activate in normal- weight and overweight people. The parts of the brain that detect fullness were less active in overweight subjects than in their normal-weight counterparts. The overweight subjects were also less likely to report fullness when their stomachs were moderately full, BNL scientists said, explaining why some people continue to eat after finishing a moderate-sized meal.

The researchers added that the study may help behavioral, medical or surgical treatment strategies for overweight and obese people by targeting specific sections of the brain responsible for the sensation of fullness.

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