Pharma won a “stunning victory” over the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, or NICE, which a UK Court of Appeal ruled had acted unfairly in refusing to allow Pfizer and Eisai full access to a computer model that was used to assess cost-effectiveness of their Aricept drug for Alzheimer’s, The Times of London [...]

Hired someone new and exciting? Promoted a rising star? Finally solved that hard-to-fill spot? Share the news with us and we’ll share with it others. That’s right. Send us your announcements and we’ll find a home for them. Don’t be shy. Everyone wants to know who is coming and going, especially with all the layoffs [...]

And why not? The US dollar is playing how-low-can-you-go and drugmakers are distracted as they scramble to cut costs. “It’s like the Manhattan real estate market,” David Webster of Webster Consulting, tells Reuters. “What keeps it afloat are the Japanese and Europeans or whoever seems to be making money worldwide and whoever has a strong [...]

Take heart. The weekend is near. Even if you bring work home with you, the time for relaxation and, maybe, fun is near. So attack those meetings and deadlines with enthusiasm and conviction. While we take the short people to school and encourage the Pharmalot mascot to poop, here are a few items to help [...]

A four-day hearing got under way today that may decide how the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence decides how it will cover medicines. Pfizer and Eisai hope to force the National Health Service to give all Alzheimer’s patients access to Aricept, which they market jointly. The NICE recommended last year the drug [...]

The fellow who heads the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which advises the National Health System on drugs to be used, wonders aloud why patient groups never criticize drugmakers over price. Sir Michael Rawlins infers the lack of criticism reflects the donations made by drugmakers. So he urged charities to question the [...]

In a first for the UK health system, Pfizer and its marketing partner, Eisai, are taking the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, or NICE, to court next month over the agency’s decision to ban Alzheimer’s drugs for newly diagnosed National Health Service patients. The court date has been fast-tracked and is set for [...]

Eisai is denying claims that it withdrew a supplemental European application for its Aricept Alzheimer’s treatment because the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is limiting use of the pill only to patients with moderate or severe symptoms.
The Japanese drug maker was asked by the European Medicines Agency to provide additional data showing that [...]