Posts from — December 2008

FDA Approves Alcon’s AcrySof(R) IQ ReSTOR(R) +3.0 D Intraocular Lens in the US. The product is already sold in Europe.

New Lens Corrects for Cataracts with Presbyopia

The rapidly growing healthcare sector in India, while remaining buoyant is expected to slow as a result of less capital being available to fund new investments in facilities. Discretionary medical procedures and some drug prescriptions are likely to be postponed or eliminated.

There is a general tightening on spending with travel budgets being cut across the board from hospital and healthcare facilities to medical device manufacturers like Beckman Coulter and BD.

Informative write-up at Express Healthcare.

Following on from their entry into the home healthcare business through their acquisition of Respironics, Philips has now acquired Medel, a leading aerosol therapy business based in Italy. As a bonus they also get an established manufacturing base in Guangdong, China.

According to CEO Don Spence:

Philips Home Healthcare Solutions CEO Don Spence, who in November 2008 succeeded former chief executive John Miclot, said: “When Philips acquired Respironics, the company also had a leading respiratory drug delivery business. Building upon that strength and fulfilling on our ambition to expand our high-growth compressor nebulizer systems franchise, we decided to acquire the aerosol therapy business of Medel which allows us to better serve the needs of our customers and their patients who suffer from asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cystic fibrosis and other respiratory disorders.”

This is another smart move by Philips exanding it’s position in the higher value end of the homecare business as well as the drug delivery side homecare.

The question is what next in homecare? Diabetic therapies (also fits drug delivery), dialysis… or perhaps the most obvious, wound care. We could suggest several great candidates.

We have blogged quite a lot about the homecare respiratory business (including) about Respironics in the past. you may find this background interesting.

News Release

South Africa has the dubious privilege of being the worlds most populous nation per capita to be infected with the HIV virus. For years the Mbeki regime decided to go against leading researchers and continuously questioned the connection between the HIV virus and it’s natural vulgar and deadly path to AIDS. They shunned anti retro viral (ARV) programs and rather advocated healthy diet as a remedy. There was recently a change with Mbeki leaving and his successor appointing a new Health Minister Barbara Hogan who fortunately has taken a different position and has started talking about taking a much more proactive stand against the disease.

All the major pharmaceutical companies have corporations in South Africa, the major charities, including Gates and Clinton are supplying funding and support to turn around the years of aids denialism in the country and get infected patients on to ARV’s.

Just in case you need more convincing the life expectancy is down to about 48 and this is what the CIA Factbook says about the population:

48,782,756
note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, higher death rates, lower population growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2008 est.)

So what’s the point you may ask. Well today one of the largest provincial authorities (government funded) in the country announced that they we not taking on an new ARV treatment patients because they had run out of money – no they haven’t.

So when bureaucrat Elke de Witt says:

“Stocks must run out if you do not have money to replenish them.”

it is really time for Minister Hogan to get on a plane and take action to stop the carnage.

Money is available – They still don’t take the disease seriously.

Advanced Medical Optics (AMO), Inc. and FDA notified healthcare professionals of a recall of Healon D Ophthalmic Viscosurgical Device, Lot Number UD30654, 30 mg/mL fill size syringes. Some of the tested OVD syringes had endotoxin levels above the required limit.

There is an interesting article in PharmaLive which suggests that physicians are more satisfied now than before with the lower frequency of sales calls.

In data published by SDIHealth, Pfizer was ranked number 1 in traditional detailing.

Actually very few physicians or other health care professional object to sales calls as long as the calls are informative and helpful.

There are those that say that medical sales reps are going to go the way of newspapers and televisons as a result of the current new media communications methods.

It’s time to start a Facebook detailing application…

Sales force expert Jim McLean has written these interesting articles about Sales.