TraQ Program of the BC PBCO

News items constitute an arbitrary selection of events. Links to archived news items may no longer be active.

Index: General news - multiple companies | Specific companies (will change over time)

General News / Multiple Companies

• Research and Markets 
  • Capitalizing on Opportunities in Cord Blood Industry Growth (2013 Version)
  • Blood Substitute Partnering 2007-2013
• Global blood plasma market report: 2013 Edition (Mar. 2013) | Pdf costs $800 USD
  • The rivalry prevalent in the global blood plasma market is quite fierce with numerous local and global players contenting for the market share. On the global front, the key players are Baxter, CSL, Grifols and Octapharma.
• India: Stem cell industry (12 Feb. 2013) | Fearing unscrupulous use, stakeholders race to regulate applications
• USA: Health care providers can proceed as a class in their claim that Immucor & Ortho Clinical Diagnostics fixed blood reagent prices (29 Aug. 2012)
• Germany's Fresenius Kabi buys Fenwal for a rumoured $1.1 billion (21 July 2012) | Fresenius announcement
• USA: FDA puts hold on phase III clinical trials of Ipsen and Inspiration Biopharmaceuticals' hemophilia B drug, IB1001 (10 July 2012) (Also see Understanding clinical trials)
• US Supreme Court rules pharmaceutical sales reps are 'outside salesmen' & don't qualify for overtime pay (Judge Alito, 18 June 2012)
  • Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp.
  • Tidbit: Petitioners were well compensated for their efforts, and their gross pay included both a base salary and incentive pay. The amount of incentive pay was determined based on the performance of petitioners’ assigned portfolio of drugs in their assigned sales territories.
• Pharma's influence over published clinical evidence (4 Apr. 2012)
• Big Pharma spends over €40 million/yr lobbying in EU (7 Apr. 2012)
• Blast from the past: All about HIV testing: the business of tracking deadly viruses (1992)
• Big Pharma pays $billions in 2011 to settle shady marketing practices in USA:
  • Abbott Laboratories (USA) reported to pay $1.3 billion to settle claims it illegally marketed drug (21 Oct. 2011)
  • GlaxoSmith Kline (UK) pays $3bn (£1.9bn) to settle probe by US authorities (3 Nov. 2011)
  • Merck (Germany) subpoenaed by U.S. regulators over marketing practices (9 Aug. 2011)
  • Serono (US affiliate of Merck) pays $44m to settle allegations it paid healthcare providers to promote or prescribe drug
• CaridianBCT and Terumo to become Terumo BCT (24 Oct. 2011)
• Court rules in favor of Fenwal in ~6-yr patent dispute with Haemonetics
• Big Pharma wants to 'friend' you (24 July 2011)

SPECIFIC COMPANIES

Alba Bioscience

• New £7m investment to fund expansion in Scottish subsiduary (7 Mar. 2012)

Amgen

• Incomplete report on early trial of EPO misled medical community about risks/benefits & helped make Amgen rich (14 May 2012)

AstraZeneca

• End of the 'gravy train' for docs? (3 June 2011)

Baxter

• Gammagard fails in late-stage trial to treat Alzheimer's disease (7 May 2013)

Bio-Rad

• Bio-Rad co-founder David Schwartz dead at 88 (1 Apr. 2012) Idea that led to he & his wife creating Bio-Rad came about during a student bridge game in 1952

Cangene

• Cangene to sell U.S. plasma centres (17 Sept. 2012) | "...it makes more sense to source plasma primarily from the open market..." (Similar to CBS decision to close Thunder Bay plasma collection centre?)

CSL

• Quarantining of CSL human albumin (4% and 20%) | Recall notice (9 Mar. 2012)

GlaxoSmithKline

• GlaxoSmithKline settles drug fraud case for $3B US & guilty plea (2 July 2012) (Also see blood doping blog on Olympics testing lab, July 2012)

Grifols

• Grifols plant near Barcelona delivers jobs for hard-hit Spanish economy (30 May 2012) According to WikiLeaks, it's one of 3 interests that US government considers of strategic importance on Iberian peninsula.
• Spain: Grifols establishes Expert Advisory Council in Transfusion Medicine (7 Mar. 2011)

Haemonetics

• Client letter with examining protocol, photos on potential for leaks in the flexible Y connector of donor line in some whole blood collection sets (14 Dec. 2012) Fall-out from Hema-Quebec issue. Love how they mention in 1st paragraph it's Pall Corp products

Immucor

• Immucor pays $3.9 M to settle price-fixing coverup claims (6 Mar. 2013)
• Immucor to buy Hologic's Lifecodes (molecular and antibody-based assays) (3 Jan. 2013)
• Immucor launches Lab Education And Resource Network (LEARN) For customers only | Immucor Login
• Immucor's credit rating at Standard & Poor's (13 Aug. 2012) Interesting read
• Immucor executives in the news:
  • CEO Bill Hawkins (former Medtronic CEO) to chair public-private partnership to bring regulatory sciences center for med technology to Minnesota (29 Feb. 2012)
• William A Hawkins apppointed new CEO (6 Oct. 2011)
  • Background: Medtronics CEO Hawkins to retire after 3-yr struggle to grow sales (Bloomberg News)
  • Hawkins' compensation for 2010 > $9.5 million (Forbes)
• Immucor to be bought by investment firm, TPG Capital for $1.973 billion (5 July 2011)

Merck

• Merck to pay almost $1 billion to settle Vioxx charges (22 Nov. 2011)

MSoft

• UK: MSoft's Bloodhound electronic blood tracking system wins contracts from 2 NHS trusts (25 May 2012) | MSoft Bloodhound

Novo Nordisk

• Army probes big pharma payments to military doctors (20 June 2011)
  • Army again probing Novo Nordisk's Fort Sam payments (15 June 2011)

Pfizer

• Pfizer settles bribery charges (11 Aug. 2012) 8/10 biggest firms mention costs for corruption. Pfizer seems to be normal for industry.

Taiga Biotechnologies

• Colorado firm develops method to generate adult rbc from proprietary stem-cell lines from cord blood in 14 days (6 June 2011)
  • Terumo BCT awarded $3.5M by U.S. DOD for clinical trials on pathogen reduction (9 July 2012)

Terumo BCT

• Terumo BCT awarded $3.5M by U.S. DOD for clinical trials on pathogen reduction (9 July 2012)
• CaridianBCT and Terumo to become Terumo BCT (24 Oct. 2011)