Pfizer’s Generic Buy-In
With Pfizer set to acquire rival drugmaker Wyeth (a $68 billion deal) and its expertise in making profitable and complex biologic drugs, Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler has expressed strong support for allowing generic versions of them.

“Done right, with regard to the safety of the products, biological follow-ons are a very appropriate thing to do,” he said in a recent AP interview. “We support that, especially because we're now buying a large biotech operation.”

The Wyeth portfolio includes the biologic blockbuster Enbrel, an arthritis medicine. It also has cancer drug Mylotarg and hemophilia drugs BeneFix and ReFacto. Pfizer only sells one biologic, Macugen, for macular degeneration; but has 17 in development.

The big pharma companies see a path to profits in biotech. Biologic drugs, made in living cells, can cost $1,000 and up per month and so far have faced little generic competition. Still, change is in the air in the nation’s capital. President Obama supports legislation to create an easier pathway for “biosimilar” drugs. And Kindler was the only drug industry CEO to attend a recent White House healthcare reform summit.

Saying he’s “certainly for the idea of providing a way to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of different kinds of treatments,” Kindler also backs government-sponsored research comparing drug effectiveness, an opinion of rarity in his industry.

Kindler, who travels frequently discussing reform ideas with patients, doctors, nurses, labor and business groups, said the drug industry must “contribute to solutions” to problems in healthcare. He backs greater emphasis on preventive care and more government insurance to more people.

The Eye of the Pharmacist
According to a recent Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (www.ahrq.gov) study, America’s pharmacists are healthcare’s “old eagle eye.” The study showed that 40% of all caught medication errors came from the intervention of a pharmacist. Meanwhile, physicians caught just 19% of errors, and patients noticed 17%. Across 25 years of Gallup polling, pharmacists continually rate high in honesty and ethics. Still, the researchers added that the vast majority of medication errors could be avoided by use of e-prescribing.

What? Docs, Insurers, Pharma and Business Agree
According to the WSJ Health Blog (blogs.wsj.com/health), a collection of health care groups known as Health Reform Dialogue have issued a set of recommendations aimed at governing the debate over restructuring healthcare, and their ideas are generally consistent with the direction Democrats in Washington are heading.

Although the group sidestepped the thorniest issues, such as whether individuals or employers should be required to buy or offer coverage, and whether a government-run health plan should be available to compete with private companies, it indicated support for a “fair and transparent” marketplace for buying insurance, with sliding-scale subsidies based on income, and it wanted “reforms necessary” so that everyone will buy or otherwise obtain insurance. It also endorsed more federal funding for Medicaid.

Organizations participating include: the AARP, Advanced Medical Technology Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, American College of Physicians, American Hospital Association, American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Two unions (the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Service Employees International Union) declined to sign.

Focus for Sales
Drug sales reps that abuse real-time communication tools like instant messaging, texting, and mobile e-mail can hinder their ability to engage with physicians. “A lot of people at our company believe that multi-tasking makes them more efficient,” stated a sales executive in a recent roundtable discussion conducted by Best Practices Global Benchmarking Council (www.best-in-class.com). “In reality, they’re so distracted by doing four things at once that the quality of their work across all fronts is poor.”