Merck & Co.
213 E Grand Ave, South San Francisco, CA
33 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston, MA
320 Bent St, Cambridge, MA
33 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston, MA
320 Bent St, Cambridge, MA
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San Mateo, Calif.-based startup CuraSen Therapeutics surged forward this morning with $54.5 million in Series A funding and a leadership team that includes executives from Afferent Pharmaceuticals, a company acquired by Merck in 2016 for $1.2 billion.
“President Trump is taking historic action to bring patients more transparency through consumer advertising,” Azar said in a speech. “We are proposing to require American drug companies for the first time ever to include in their TV advertising the list prices of drugs paid for by Medicare or Medicaid.”
Who mixed things up in the biotech world this past week? Pfizer announces its leadership team, Rheos gets a new COO, and board of directors updates from multiple biopharma companies.
In August, Pfizer filed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accusing Amgen and Roche of using social media to mislead doctors and patients about biosimilars and their effectiveness.
The AP in a recent report notes that drug price increases “slowed somewhat and were not quite as steep as in past years.” But overall, there has been no “massive” drug price cuts.
Kenneth Frazier, chief executive officer of Merck, speaking with the Economic Club of New York, joined a growing list of pharmaceutical chiefs in criticizing the role of middlemen in rising drug prices.
In looking at companies that are shaping the future, Time Magazine selected 50 business that are leading the charge. While many tech companies lead the way, there are several pharma and life science companies that are also disrupting the future.
In a report, Bloomberg said that pharma’s “efforts to maximize (financial) gains” has led to the coloring of R&D decisions and creating barriers to the entry of competing medications that can add costs to the health care system.
In April, Dr. Robert Redfield, the new head of the CDC, boldly predicted that the AIDS epidemic can be defeated by 2025. This morning Merck, Janssen and Gilead all released clinical data for HIV treatments that could make Redfield’s prediction a reality.
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