[New York Times] For the last year, Pfizer has been laying the groundwork to combat the looming competition against Lipitor, forging deals with insurers, pharmacy benefit managers and patients to meet or beat the price of its generic replacements.
As it loses its patent for Lipitor, the top-selling cholesterol drug, on Wednesday, Pfizer is [...]

(Reuters) – France’s highest court on Monday overturned France’s ban on growing a strain of genetically modified maize (corn) developed by U.S. biotech firm Monsanto, saying it was not sufficiently justified.

[Vietnamnet] After the five biggest public hospitals in Hanoi banned their staff from taking ‘envelope’ (tip or black money) from patients in September 2011, VietNamNet has launched a forum on medical ethics and we have received emails from hundreds of readers making comments on this topic.
 
A survey by the Ministry of Health’s Trade Union reveals [...]

[New York Times] Merck has agreed to pay $950 million and has pleaded guilty to a criminal charge over the marketing and sales of the painkiller Vioxx, the company and the Justice Department said Tuesday.
The negotiated settlement, which includes resolution of civil cases, was the latest of a series of fraud cases brought by [...]

[Reuters] The U.S. healthcare system is more effective at delivering high costs than quality care, according to a new study that found first-rate treatment for cancer but insufficient primary care for other ailments.
The study, released on Wednesday by the 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, said [...]

[WSJ] ‘Here is a staggering fact,” marvels John Lechleiter, the CEO and chairman of the drug maker Eli Lilly & Co. “In 1960 the average life expectancy in East Asia was 39. Thirty-nine! In 1990, 30 years later, it was 67. Think about that. Does that explain the Asian economic boom? I think it might [...]

[Reuters] Europe set out plans to boost research into the neglected area of antibiotics on Thursday by promising to accelerate approval of new drugs, while ensuring adequate prices for their makers and promoting industry-wide R&D.
Multi-drug resistant bacteria, or so-called superbugs, are a growing threat across Europe, with rates of drug resistance in one type of [...]

[New York Times] Doctors who earn money for cardiac stress testing are much more likely to prescribe the tests than those who don’t, a new study has found.
Researchers at Duke University studied data on 17,847 patients nationwide who had cardiac bypass surgery or coronary angioplasty, checking to see how often doctors prescribed nuclear [...]

[MSNBC] Suspended animation may not be just for sci-fi movies anymore: Trauma surgeons soon will try plunging some critically injured people into a deep chill — cooling their body temperatures as low as 50 degrees — in hopes of saving their lives.
Many trauma patients have injuries that should be fixable but they [...]

[Forbes] Most of what Bill Gates said to me over the course of two interviews found its way into the cover profile of him I wrote for the most recent issue of Forbes. But one set of ideas didn’t really make it: his unique and thoughtful perspective on the pharmaceuticals industry.
After a conversation with Gates, one [...]