Silverpop Launches Email Insights Application
Silverpop, the only digital marketing technology solutions provider that offers email, mobile and social media, announced their new Email Insights Application launched by their Emerging Apps Group. Integrated with email analytics by Litmus, the company says this feature makes it very effective for marketers to preview how email campaigns are doing across different channels and devices. Other features include quick preview and appropriate views across Gmail, Outlook, iPhone, and Android platforms.
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International to Acquire Bausch + Lomb
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. will acquire the global eye health company Bausch + Lomb for an aggregate of $8.7 billion, of which $4.5 million will go towards the investor group led by Warburg Pincus, and $4.2 billion toward the repayment of Bausch + Lomb’s outstanding debts. The eye health company will retain its name and operate as a division of Valeant, while Valeant’s existing opthomology businesses will be integrated into the Bausch + Lomb division. This will create a worldwide eye health platform with an estimated net revenue of more than $3.5 billion.
Perrigo Launches Industry Wide Marketing Campaign
Perrigo announced its recent industry wide marketing campaign kickoff to raise awareness and build consumer confidence in generic OTC (Over the Counter) medications sold at leading retailers around the country. Some of the company’s earlier branding campaigns including “Got Milk?” and “Pork: The Other White Meat” have been very successful. As the world’s largest manufacturer of OTC medications for the store brand market, Perrigo’s new campaign focuses on educating the consumer about store brand meds. The company says that educating the retail customer may eventually lead to more empowered consumers.
WaferGen Launches SmartChip TE
A novel target enrichment solution, the Next-Gen Sequencing (NGS), aimed at clinical solutions, SmartChip TE was launched by WaferGen. This target enrichment solution created for sample preparation prior to targeted sequencing on Next-Gen platforms, SmartChip TE addresses unmet needs of CLIA-certified and clinical research laboratories in sequencing-based testing. The high performance of SmartChip TE is said to be attributed to proprietary technology that relies extensively on parallel singleplex PCR reactions, which are said to provide cleaner and better-controlled amplification and more accurate results in the downstream sequencing step.
Healthcare Startup Vitals Raises $22 Million
Vitals, a company that helps consumers find the right doctors and understand cost and care options before their appointments announced that it raised $22 million in Series C funding. The funding will be used to expand Vitals’ services to include better data and more tools to help consumers understand the cost of healthcare, and to develop decision-support tools for health insurance choices. Its website (www.vitals.com), launched in 2007, currently serves 13 million people. Investors include Piper Jaffray Merchant Banking and Health Enterprise Partners, among others. In a domain that is stiff in competition with ZocDoc, Healthgrades, Practice Fusion, and Doximity, among others, Vitals is now set to bulk up its services in the hope that in an era of rising healthcare costs, patients will become smarter about their healthcare buys and use tools for better decision making and better health outcomes.
Now Regulators Can Sue Over Generic Drug Deals
In a 5-to-3 vote, the Supreme Court said that the Federal Trade Commission can sue pharmaceutical companies based on antitrust violations. This will probably end “pay-for-delay” deals, in which pharma companies pay rivals to keep less expensive generics off the market for a certain amount of time. The decision means that drug developers will find it harder to ward off generics. Generics usually cost about 15% of a brand name’s price, causing the brand name manufacturers to rapidly lose about 90% of their market share. The decision, though, is likely to be a boon to consumers and insurance companies, among others, who will benefit from an increase in the number of lower-cost generics in the marketplace.
AstraZeneca to Acquire Omthera Pharmaceuticals
AstraZeneca is set to acquire specialty pharmaceutical company, Omthera Pharmaceuticals. Omthera focuses on development and commercialization of new therapies for abnormal levels of lipids in the blood, called dyslipidemia. This acquisition is a step to complement AstraZeneca’s cardiovascular portfolio. The acquisition is priced at $12.70 per share, which is approximately $323 million. Omthera’s patent investigational product Epanova is designed for the potential treatment of patients with high triglycerides.
Actavis to Acquire Warner Chilcott
Actavis will acquire Warner Chilcott in a stock-for-stock transaction. If the merger is successfully completed, it will create a leading global specialty pharmaceutical company with approximately $11 billion in combined annual revenue. It will also be the third largest U.S. specialty pharmaceutical company—with approximately $3 billion in annual revenues—focused on core therapeutic categories of Women’s Health, gastroenterology, urology and dermatology. This acquisition will enhance the value of both companies and provide a substantial foundation to support the successful launch of new products.
Amgen and Zhejiang Beta Pharma Joint Venture
Amgen and Zhejiang Beta Pharma announced their planned joint venture in China. Together Amgen and Zhejiang aim at delivering cancer-drug Vectibix quickly and efficiently to patients in China. The venture will join the expertise of Zhejiang Beta Pharma in the development and commercialization of molecularly targeted therapies, as well as its industry-leading oncology sales network in China, with Amgen’s global expertise in the development and manufacturing of human therapeutics.
GlucoMen Launch App to Help Improve Diabetes Control
The newly launched GlucoMen’s GlucoLog Lite helps record all test results so that patients can always have their glucose history at doctor consultations. This enables an analysis of the effectiveness of their treatment and helps in making important decisions to avoid long-term complications of diabetes. Features that allow viewing the results in a simple logbook format, or graph or chart and emailing between patient and doctor, further enhance its efficiency and usefulness.
Re-branding Discovery Chicago to Discovery USA
The largest healthcare communications company in the world, Publicis Healthcare Communications Group (PHCG), announced that they are re-branding “Discovery Chicago” to “Discovery USA.” The re-branding represents the company’s expansion outside of Chicago to its Pennsylvania operations. The expansion is said to allow PHCG the ability to provide high-science communication expertise to its global clientele. The company has also partnered with Williams-Labadie and Saatchi & Saatchi Science, based in Yardley, Pennsylvania; the integration of the three companies is aimed at offering clients seamless network services.
HMS Announces Release of FAST Promotion
Howell Marketing Services (HMS) released the promotion of their signature FAST (Fulfillment and Sample Tracking Service), a validated information system that provides instant data through a fully integrated close-loop ERP process from receipt to return. The focus of FAST is to make the sample distribution programs information available in real time for the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry.
