Category: AIDS

MEwens
McNeil Oversight Changes: Johnson & Johnson is replacing two company group chairmen who had been charged with turning around the McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit after a series of recalls, the WSJ reports. Patrick Mutchler, charged with overseeing McNeil last April, is retiring and will be replaced by Roberto Marques. Meantime, the duties of […]

Laura Landro
Consumer Unit Oversight Changes: Johnson & Johnson is replacing two company group chairmen who had been charged with turning around the company’s consumer health unit after a series of recalls, the WSJ reports. Patrick Mutchler, charged with overseeing McNeil Consumer Healthcare last April, is retiring and will be replaced by Roberto Marques. […]

MEwens
Lipitor Benefit Changes: Pharmacy-benefit manager Express Scripts will move brand-name Lipitor to the third tier of its national drug formulary from the second tier as of Feb. 1, increasing co-pays for some patients and emphasizing Pfizer’s challenge of holding on to sales of the drug, the WSJ reports. The generic versions of Lipitor […]

MEwens
Antibiotics in Livestock: The FDA said it will ban the use of antibiotics called cephalosporins to prevent disease in livestock, though the drugs can still be used to treat illnesses in the animals, the WSJ reports. The agency — and other experts — are concerned that over- or misuse of the drugs can […]

MEwens
New Yorkers are living longer than ever — babies born in the city in 2009 can expect to live to 80.6, higher than the national average of 78.2 years, the WSJ reports today. But why?
Some city officials are pointing to the city’s anti-tobacco efforts — bans on smoking in bars, restaurants, parks and […]

MEwens
The journal Science is out with its list of the ten most important scientific breakthroughs of the year, including several achievements from the world of health and medicine.
The publication’s top pick: a trial of 1,763 couples, almost all of them heterosexual, showing that giving antiretroviral drugs to people already infected by HIV reduced […]

MEwens
Call for Funding: President Obama called for spending an extra $50 million on U.S. HIV/AIDS programs, including $15 million for HIV clinics and $35 million for state drug-assistance programs, the WSJ reports. He also called for putting about 2.1 million more people globally on antiretroviral drugs by the end of fiscal 2013, through […]

MEwens
Generic Lipitor Approval: Indian drug company Ranbaxy, a unit of Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo, has received FDA approval for its generic version of Pfizer’s Lipitor, the WSJ reports. (Ranbaxy will share profits from the drug during the first 180 days with Teva, according to the company.) The FDA says Ranbaxy’s atorvastatin calcium tablets will […]

MEwens
Managing HIV: New CDC research shows that the majority of patients with HIV in the U.S. aren’t receiving medications and care necessary to control the virus enough to prevent them from passing it to others or impacting their own health, partly because some don’t know they’re infected, the WSJ reports. Only about 28% […]

MEwens
Trial Disappointment: A trial conducted in Africa of a microbicide gel containing the anti-HIV drug tenofovir has ended because the gel didn’t protect women from contracting the virus, the New York Times reports. Part of the study — which also looked at whether two different pills protected against the virus — is continuing […]