[FirstWord]- A Novartis spokesman confirmed Tuesday that the company dismissed a number of senior executives for misconduct. The person declined to detail the number of staff involved, and did not give reasons for the disciplinary action. “We do not comment on the specifics of disciplinary actions related to current or former employees,” the spokesman said.
In [...]

[FirstWord]- The US Department of Justice said Merck KGaA’s Serono unit agreed to pay $44.3 million to resolve allegations that it paid physicians to prescribe its multiple sclerosis drug Rebif (interferon beta-1a).
The investigation, which was spurred by a whistleblower lawsuit, suggested that the drugmaker paid for healthcare providers to attend various training meetings and conferences [...]

[WSJ]- The WSJ recently chatted with new Pfizer CEO Ian Read, who replaced Jeffrey Kindler a few months back.
Here’s the Boss Talk interview. And here’s even more from our conversation with Read, on the public’s perception of Big Pharma, gauging a drug’s risks and benefits and R&D investment.
You say the true value pharma brings to [...]

[WSJ]- A government attempt to oust a longtime drug-company chief executive over his company’s marketing violations is raising alarms in that industry and beyond about a potential expansion of federal involvement in the business world.
The Department of Health and Human Services this month notified Howard Solomon of Forest Laboratories Inc. that it intends to exclude [...]

[Physorg]- The United States should pay close attention to how the United Kingdom carries out plans to assess a new drug’s worth using factors that go beyond clinical and cost effectiveness, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.
In a commentary to appear in the April 7 issue of the New England [...]

[Reuters] – California’s insurance regulator has thrown its weight behind a lawsuit accusing Bristol Myers Squibb Co of dishing out kickbacks to doctors who prescribe its drugs.
The whistleblower lawsuit, brought by former employees of the pharmaceutical giant and previously under seal, accuses Bristol Myers Squibb of resorting to bribes to try to ramp up sales [...]

[NYTimes]- First, do no harm?
For some doctors that may not be the case, at least when money is involved. A new study of thousands of doctors found that just 8 of 10 strongly agreed that they should put patient welfare before their own financial interests. And 4 of 10 did not think they needed to [...]

[Reuters] – A judge hearing a dispute between the Federal Trade Commission and a generic drug company slammed the U.S. agency on Wednesday, saying there was a “strong possibility” that it overstepped its bounds and shared confidential information.
The FTC has been seeking to interview Watson Pharmaceutical CEO Paul Bisaro as part of its probe of [...]

[WSJ]-Executives in financial services and technology are the most cutthroat in collecting intelligence about competitors, while pharmaceutical executives and government officials are the most trepid, according to a recent survey.
Fuld & Co., a competitive-intelligence consultant based in Cambridge, Mass., presented 104 business executives with hypothetical scenarios that would give the executive an opportunity to collect [...]

[PharmTechTalk] The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues released a report last week that supported continuing research in the emerging field of synthetic biology with some additional federal oversight. President Obama had asked the Commission in May 2010 to study the implications of synthetic biology following the announcement by the J. Craig Venter [...]