USA After Big Pharma lobby groups suffered a major drug pricing blow earlier this year with the passage of the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), pharma industry heavyweight AbbVie is withdrawing its membership to leading industry trade groups PhRMA and BIO.   AbbVie Bows Out AbbVie is leaving both of the…

Global CSL, Australia’s largest biopharma company, overcame the challenges of the pandemic-related decline in plasma collection and has since racked up wins such as the acquisition of Vifor, the largest in the company’s history, and the FDA approval of its gene therapy for haemophilia B. Newly appointed CEO Paul McKenzie takes…

USA Clinical trial diversity not only allows for a better understanding of the safety and efficacy of new therapies in population subgroups but also plays a significant role in reducing health inequities. In conversation with PharmaBoardroom, outgoing president and global chief executive of the Drug Information Association (DIA) Barbara Lopez Kunz,…

USA A boom in decentralised clinical trials was an unexpected effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. However, these trials require expertise and technology that can differ significantly from those needed for clinical trials, as Curavit Clinical Research’s Joel Morse writes in the DIA Global Forum’s special November 2022 issue…

Global Fortune’s new 50 Most Powerful Women in Business list features four representatives of Big Pharma, as well as a further four from powerful US health insurance corporations.   The annual ranking is based on five criteria: the size and importance of a leader’s business in the global economy, the health…

Global The FDA’s recent accelerated approval for Bluebird Bio’s gene therapy Skysona and its US list price of USD three million per treatment has reignited the global debate around drug pricing. Bluebird execs are keen to emphasise how life-changing such treatments are for a small number of patients; Skysona is indicated…

Global AstraZeneca’s CEO Pascal Soriot warns that the new US legislation controlling drug prices would reduce innovators’ capacity to recover drug development investments and therefore discourage innovation, especially for drugs with smaller patient pools. In a Reuters interview last week Soriot said the law recently passed in the United States that would…

USA While patient groups view the United States’ new Inflation Reduction Act as a positive move towards capping out-of-pocket drug costs for older Americans, the innovative pharma industry, after aggressively lobbying against it, still argues that the new legislation will hamper drug development. [The new law] is a significant step in…

USA Pharma companies have become vocal about social issues in recent years, championing access and affordability and launching initiatives to address diversity, but in the weeks since the United States’ Supreme Court’s overturn of the Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion the industry’s reaction has been far from consistent. While certain…

USA Monica Weldon draws on her own experience as a rare disease patient advocacy group CEO to outline how such groups can work collaboratively with other stakeholders in drug development to better target funding and create a more patient-centric drug development process that ultimately gets better drugs to rare disease patients…

USA US generics giant Mallinckrodt, which declared bankruptcy in 2020 after a stream of litigation regarding its role in the opioid epidemic and underpaying Medicaid rebates for its drug Acthar, has announced a new strategic plan and CEO as it emerges from its “restructuring process.”   Controversy on Controversy The USA’s…

USA As of July 1st, long-term Merck alumni, Chirfi Guindo, will be returning to the company to lead Human Health Marketing as chief marketing officer for Merck Human Health and will join the Merck Executive Team after almost 5 years at Biogen. Before the parenthesis at Biogen, where he served as…