5 replies to this topic

[stocks]

Over the next few years, the pharmaceutical business will hit a wall.

Some of the top-selling drugs in industry history will become history as patent protections expire, allowing generics to rush in at much-lower prices. Generic competition is expected to wipe $67 billion from top companies' annual U.S. sales between 2007 and 2012 as more than three dozen drugs lose patent protection. That is roughly half of the companies' combined 2007 U.S. sales.

At the same time, the industry's science engine has stalled. The century-old approach of finding chemicals to treat diseases is producing fewer and fewer drugs. Especially lacking are new blockbusters to replace old ones like Lipitor, Plavix and Zyprexa.

The coming sales decline may signal the end of a once-revered way of doing business. "I think the industry is doomed if we don't change," says Sidney Taurel, chairman of Eli Lilly & Co. Just yesterday, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. announced plans to cut 10% of its work force, or about 4,300 jobs, and close or sell about half of its 27 manufacturing plants by 2010.

Between 2011 and 2012, annual industry revenue will decline, estimates Datamonitor, a research and consulting firm. That would be the first decline in at least four decades.

http://online.wsj.co...s_us_whats_news

[Specul8]

Merck Unblinds AIDS Study


Two international trials of Merck & Co. Inc.’s experimental AIDS vaccine were stopped after researchers realized the vaccine did not prevent infection with the AIDS virus.

Instead, indications suggest that the vaccine may actually raise the risk of infection, though it cannot cause an HIV infection itself.

Now, Merck has announced that it will “unblind” the study, and let the thousands of volunteers know who received the active vaccine and who got a dummy shot.

Researchers have begun counseling volunteers that they could now be at a higher risk of contracting HIV.

The AIDS vaccine trials were conducted in the United States, Peru, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Australia and South Africa.



And now for something completely different:
"Doomsday Seed Vault" in the Arctic:
http://www.globalres...n...va&aid=7529

Edited by Specul8, 08 December 2007 - 11:04 AM.

[calmcookie]

Yikes !!! What kind of person "volunteers" to be injected with this stuff? Curious as to what risk factors they were told might happen. If told that it "might" result in a higher risk of getting HIV ... would ANYONE volunteer? (drugs will always be needed for some things (especially pain meds), but I agree that the heyday is over. OMHO)

Edited by calmcookie, 08 December 2007 - 12:26 PM.

[maineman]

Tell me you guys are serious? Or just yanking some chains? Life expectancy has doubled in the past few decades, every-day diseases have been eradicated, new drugs for colon cancer, lung cancer, diabetes, etc. are out every day. Its breathtaking! The work on the genetic code will unleash an unprecedented avalanche of new medical/drug technology that will amaze! And save lives and prevent sadness and ill health.... You don't really believe that stuff, do you? You are alive today because of medical research...wanna go back to childhood death? Death from Leukemia? Incapacitating strokes? Premature cardiac death? Rheumatic fever? Measles deaths? Polio crippling? The "good old days"? mm

[Specul8]

Yikes !!! What kind of person "volunteers" to be injected with this stuff?

People who want to make some easy money and under estimate the risks involved. My brother in law, who was healthy signed up for a drug test. Subsequently he had a stroke. His doctor told him it was not as a result of the drug study, as if he could know that! Anyway my gullible brother in law believed him. I wonder how many other participants in that study had strokes and if the drug testing company is aware of it? Just more unprosecuted white collar crime.

Edited by Specul8, 09 December 2007 - 08:42 AM.

[maineman]