Pharmaceutical Companies

Parents have nine months - more or less - to decide their new baby's name. It took SmithKline Beecham P.L.C. more than three years to create and trademark the name Avandia for its diabetic drug approved in May. SmithKline Beecham's experience is not unique. Most pharmaceutical companies take that much time to develop brand names. And they can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so. For years, Avandia was known as BRL-49653. Researchers had no problem calling it by that name.

Pharmaceutical companies contributed more than $1.9 million in the last four years to Garden State political parties and elected officials, according to a report released yesterday by the watchdog group New Jersey Citizen Action. Organizers with the group linked the donations to what they termed New Jersey lawmakers' reluctance to regulate the cost of prescription drugs for seniors. Gov. McGreevey promised earlier this year to implement a preferred-drug list of prescriptions purchased through the state at a lower bulk rate, but no provision was made for the program in the state budget, said Bridget Devane of Citizen Action.

The Philadelphia area, hit twice in the last year by the loss of high-paying pharmaceutical companies to neighboring states, faces the prospect of losing another with SmithKline Beecham PLC in merger talks. SmithKline, which has its U.S. headquarters in Center City, issued a joint statement with Glaxo Wellcome PLC Friday, confirming that they were discussing a merger that would produce the world's largest pharmaceutical company. A consolidation of the two British firms would create a company with $17.8 billion in annual sales, putting it $2 billion ahead of a proposed combination of Pfizer Inc. and Warner-Lambert Co. Because the two companies have little product overlap, analysts predict that a combined company would cut costs and boost profitability by reducing redundant workers.

Even though American Home Products Corp. has been jilted at the merger altar a third time, the drug industry expects the company inevitably to ascend from bridesmaid to betrothed. But who will be waiting for American Home at the end of that aisle lined by joyous, matchmaking investment bankers? The field of potential suitors is increasingly wide open in a merger-crazed industry that has already seen two mega-mergers announced this year. "The list of usual suspects is pretty long," said Alex Zisson, an analyst at Chase H&Q in New York.

RE THE "Beating Cancer" section: It's not going to happen. There is too much money to be made in the business of cancer. Pharmaceutical companies don't want you to be healthy. If you were, they'd be putting themselves out of business. Cancer, like polio and many other ailments, could be cured next month, but at the expense of closing hospitals, getting rid of doctors, closing so-called research hospitals, etc. Pharmaceutical companies seem to almost cure everything, but in reality they don't cure anything - on purpose.

"Don't Wait, Vaccinate" is the title of a mural dedicated yesterday in the 700 block of South 12th Street urging immunizations for school. The artist, Danny Torres, addressed a news conference as Mayor Rendell examined the work, sponsored by pharmaceutical companies SmithKline Beecham and Merck & Co.

BioClinica Inc. is a bit unusual these days in the region's pharmaceutical industry. It is hiring. The company creates computer software to read and measure images, such as brain scans of tumors, and to digest the huge amounts of data related to clinical studies that drug companies sponsor. The company had 522 employees at the end of 2011 and hopes to add 55 by year's end, with most of the current job listings pegged for headquarters in Newtown, Bucks County, and its site in Audubon, Montgomery County.

I FIND THE Viva Viagra commercial disgusting! It's irritating that with the world in such a sorry state, a bunch of middle-aged men have nothing better to do in the evening than "rush home and hop into bed. " How about organizing teams for the young men hanging around with nothing to do? And pharmaceutical companies could spend less on drugs to help us perform sexually and more on important diseases like cancer, diabetes, etc. Shirley Bowser, Philadelphia

I was delighted to learn, in the March 10 issue, that the tobacco industry is finally being recognized for its economic significance in America. Come to think of it, America could use some more drug traffickers and murderers; it means more jobs in the police force. What America really needs is a disfiguring global plague that would strengthen America's health professions, pharmaceutical companies, armed forces (to protect from looting), cosmetic industry (to cover up the disfiguring)

The heady days of pharmaceutical stocks are history - at least temporarily. Many pharmaceutical companies are trading about 25 percent lower than they were in late 1998 and early 1999. Concerns about Medicare price controls and forthcoming patent expirations on blockbuster drugs have pushed the drug sector out of favor on Wall Street. To this decline in stock prices, many analysts have a one-word response: "Buy. " They are prescribing a healthy dose of drug stocks for the individual investor.

In the Region Foot doctor ahead in drug-firm pay   A Philadelphia-area foot doctor was named one of a few dozen physicians across the nation who have earned more than $200,000 from speaking and consulting work for drug companies. Warren S. Joseph of Huntingdon Valley was No. 5 on ProPublica 's list of Top Earners, one of a handful of doctors who grossed more than $500,000 from pharmaceutical giants. ProPublica is a nonprofit news organization devoted to investigative journalism.

In Texas, Allen Jones determined that state employees were getting kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies, and his efforts resulted in his being named Whistle-blower of the Year and awarded about $20 million of the state's $158 million settlement. In Pennsylvania, where Jones was a commonwealth-paid investigator, he and his information were dismissed - twice, almost a decade apart. Jones had discovered malfeasance that was similar in both states, with the drug companies wanting state officials to help push higher-priced antipsychotic drugs to foster children, among other wards of the state, through taxpayer-funded Medicaid programs.

IPOs by Facebook and Manchester United notwithstanding, there are other ways to tap deep pockets. Companies can get acquired. Octagon Research Solutions Inc. , a Wayne software company that helps pharmaceutical companies with submitting clinical data to regulators, agreed to be acquired by Accenture P.L.C. earlier this month. Terms of the transaction, which is expected to close by the end of September, were not disclosed. At $25.5 billion in net revenues for 2011, Accenture is by far the bigger company.

In an effort to get FDA approval for a new cancer therapy, pharmaceutical giant Novartis is teaming with the University of Pennsylvania and investing at least $20 million in a new center to expand the university's work. The collaboration between Novartis and Penn is expected to start in the fall with a new research and development facility, the Center for Advanced Cellular Therapies, to be established within the next year. The center's location has not yet been determined but will most likely be on Penn's campus, university officials said Sunday.

GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C. said Monday that it had a deal to buy Human Genome Sciences Inc. for $3 billion, $400 million more than the London-based drugmaker offered in April. Glaxo has operations in Center City and the Philadelphia suburbs. In April, Glaxo offered $2.6 billion, or $13 a share, for HGS, which is based in Rockville, Md. Monday's announcement came after the two company boards agreed over the weekend on $14.25 a share. That price represents a 99 percent premium over the $7.17 stock price of April 18, which was the last day of trading before HGS went public with what had been Glaxo's private offer.

Opioid painkillers have pushed aside heroin and cocaine as the biggest killer drugs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Because of that, U.S. Senate Finance Committee leaders Max Baucus (D., Mont.) and Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) began an investigation this week into whether pharmaceutical companies are inappropriately pushing sales by funding doctors and quasi-independent organizations set up to produce positive literature about prescription painkillers.

The United States has a drug problem. Spending on prescription drugs rose from $40 billion in 1990 to a record $307 billion in 2010 as more people came to believe there's a pill for every problem. Pharmaceutical companies fuel this belief by bombarding the public with advertising. Self-medication with over-the-counter drugs, herbal remedies, alcohol, and street drugs compounds the problem. Now drug use has stirred up a heated controversy among mental-health professionals. Last year, 44 million American adults, or more than 22 percent of the population, were treated for mental illness.

AmerisourceBergen Corp., the Valley Forge drug wholesaler that is 27th on the Fortune 500 list, made its biggest foreign step Tuesday by announcing it has agreed to buy World Courier Group Inc., a privately held global specialty-transportation and logistics provider for the biopharmaceutical industry, for $520 million in cash. The globalization of large U.S. businesses is almost a given these days, but it doesn't apply to every company in the same way. AmerisourceBergen had more revenue - $80 billion - than any of the pharmaceutical companies it handles products for, but had only a small presence outside the United States, in Canada and Wales.

AmerisourceBergen Corp., the Valley Forge-based drug wholesaler that is 27th on the Fortune 500 list, made its biggest foreign step Tuesday by announcing it has agreed to buy World Courier Group Inc., a privately-held global specialty transportation and logistics provider for the biopharmaceutical industry, for $520 million in cash. The globalization of large American businesses is almost a given these days, but it doesn't apply to every company in the same way. AmerisourceBergen had more revenue - $80 billion - than any of the pharmaceutical companies it handles products for, but had only a small presence outside the United States, specifically Canada and Wales.

BioClinica Inc. is a bit unusual these days in the region's pharmaceutical industry. It is hiring. The company creates computer software to read and measure images, such as brain scans of tumors, and to digest the huge amounts of data related to clinical studies that drug companies sponsor. The company had 522 employees at the end of 2011 and hopes to add 55 by year's end, with most of the current job listings pegged for headquarters in Newtown, Bucks County, and its site in Audubon, Montgomery County.