Court Passes on 'Pay for Delay'
The Supreme Court has refused to consider whether drug companies violate antitrust laws when they pay generic competitors to stay out of the marketplace. The high court's rejection of the case in March allowed companies to continue the practice, known as “pay for delay.” In this case, Bayer AG, which makes the antibiotic Cipro, paid generic competitor Barr Laboratories $398 million to not make a version of the drug. Before this, such deals have come under increased scrutiny. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission condemned the deals, and estimated that they will cost consumers about $35 billion over the next decade. There is also legislation pending in Congress (S. 27) to ban pay for delay.
Psoriatic Arthritis Awareness
The Arthritis Foundation has joined the National Psoriasis Foundation and drug makers Amgen and Pfizer to educate patients about psoriatic arthritis. The centerpiece of the “Joint Smart Coalition” effort is the new Web site
Research Volunteers Sought
Researchers are asking rheumatoid arthritis patients aged 18-75 years to help test the effect of two tumor necrosis factor–blocking agents on memory B lymphocytes. The phase IV, multicenter study is being sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Participants will be randomized to receive subcutaneous injections of either etanercept (weekly) or adalimumab (every 2 weeks). The study is slated to last 24 weeks. The research centers are located in Birmingham, Ala.; San Francisco; Chicago; Manhasset, N.Y.; Rochester, N.Y.; and Charleston, S.C. More information about the study is available at
HIT Benefits Emerging
Both small physician practices and large health care organizations that quickly adopted health information technology (HIT) are already benefiting, according to Health and Human Services officials reporting in the journal Health Affairs. They reviewed recent peer-reviewed literature on HIT and found that nearly two-thirds of studies showed improvements in at least one aspect of care, ranging from patient mortality to practice efficiency, with none deemed worse because of HIT. Another 30% of the literature indicated some positive effects but also at least one negative to HIT, mainly related to transitioning to electronic records. Dissatisfied providers generally blamed problems with the technology or inadequate support for the obstruction of care improvements with HIT, according to the review from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
Doctors' Tweets Could Improve
Physicians are using the social networking service Twitter to share medical information with the public, which could have a positive effect on people's health, according to a letter published in JAMA. Few of the 5,156 physicians' tweets studied exhibited ethical breaches, reported researchers led by Dr. Katherine C. Chretien of the Washington DC VA Medical Center. They analyzed tweets sent by self-identified physicians in May 2010. About half of the tweets were health related, 12% were considered “self-promotional,” and 1% recommended a medical product or proprietary service. The researchers reported that just 3% of the total were “unprofessional,” mainly because of patient-privacy violations, profanity, sexually explicit material, inaccurate medical information, or discriminatory statements.
Tobacco Firms Sue Over Bias
Two large tobacco firms have sued the Food and Drug Administration to remove from a tobacco advisory committee three members who have ties to antitobacco litigation. Lorillard and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco asked the U.S. District Court in Washington to bar the FDA from heeding advisory committee recommendations until Dr. Neal Benowitz, Dr. Jonathan Samet, and Jack Henningfield, Ph.D., have been replaced by members that the companies deem to be unbiased. The suit also asked the court to prevent the FDA from providing any confidential document to the committee until then. The three committee members “have made tens of thousands of dollars as paid expert witnesses in litigation against tobacco products manufacturers” and have “continuing financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies that make smoking-cessation products,” the two companies said in a statement.