Posts Tagged ‘Vaccines’
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Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 02:16 | Comments Off
The Flu Season That FizzledCategories: Wall Street Journal
Hundreds of thousands of Americans usually stay home at some point during the winter battling fever, aches and pains — all the result of a normal flu season. But this flu season is clearly marching to a different drummer.
The H1N1 swine flu came and mostly went and seasonal flu has barely come at all in the U.S., the WSJ says in a survey of the flu front this morning. It’s a puzzle why there isn’t more swine flu around, ..read more
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Friday, February 19th, 2010 at 03:50 | Comments Off
Next Seasonal-Flu Vaccine to Include H1N1 ProtectionCategories: Wall Street Journal
The World Health Organization’s influenza experts have finished a four-day meeting and decided that protection against H1N1 swine flu should be included in the next regular flu-season vaccine.
The virus causing the current swine-flu pandemic surfaced too late last year to be included in the most recent seasonal-flu vaccine, so a separate vaccine was ordered up. But next time around for the Northern Hemisphere flu season, WHO is recommending H1N1 to be one of the strains added to the new seasonal ..read more
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Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 09:37 | Comments Off
Pfizer Offers First Look Inside Its Post-Merger PipelineCategories: Wall Street Journal
Pfizer gave its first pipeline update since it took over Wyeth in October. Bottom line: The company now has has about 500 products somewhere along the path between early-stage human trials and registration, down from about an initial 600 in the combined company’s pipeline.
The company also announced it had dropped its bid to combine its Lyrica pain medication with other treatment for generalized anxiety disorder. Lyrica is already approved for fibromyalgia. Pfizer recently failed to win FDA approval to ..read more
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Friday, January 15th, 2010 at 00:31 | Comments Off
The Merck Rating That Got Everybody So ExcitedCategories: Wall Street Journal
Merck shares rose 3.7% yesterday; the WSJ, among others, cite Credit Suisse analyst Catherine Arnold’s decision to raise her rating on the stock to “outperform.”
So what did Arnold say in the note that apparently added a few billion to Merck’s market cap? Here’s a bit of her reasoning:
The pipeline has potential “to offer upside relative to investor expectiations.” She cites experimental drugs for blood clots and hepatitis, and a vaccine for staph.
The company may cut spending (i.e. find “synergies”) beyond ..read more
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Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 at 06:12 | Comments Off
Merck Hires Ex-CDC Chief; New PBM Boss at CVSCategories: Wall Street Journal
A couple interesting hires in corporate health-care were announced today:
Julie Gerberding, the doctor who ran the CDC from 2002 until early this year, will head Merck’s vaccine unit, the company said. Vaccines are a $5 billion business for Merck; the previous head of the group retired earlier this year. Merck seems to be rounding out its exec team. The company said last week that it hired the dean of Tufts med school to fill a top spot. And earlier this ..read more
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Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 at 07:38 | Comments Off
Pfizer in China, AIDS Drugs in Africa, Vaccine Recall in U.S.Categories: Wall Street Journal
Here’s a quick tour of drug and vaccine news from around the globe:
Sanofi-Aventis is recalling 800,000 doses of swine flu vaccine sold in the U.S. for use in infants and toddlers. The vaccine is safe, but it appears to have to have fallen “slightly below” the specified potency, the CDC said. The recalled lots are still strong enough to reduce the risk of catching the disease, according to the agency. Officials have recommended all along that children under 10 receive ..read more
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Thursday, November 26th, 2009 at 00:43 | Comments Off
Making Flu Vaccine: Eggs Aren’t the Only ProblemCategories: Wall Street Journal
Flu vaccine is grown in chicken eggs — a powerful symbol for how old and clunky the manufacturing process is. As it turns out, though, figuring out how to grow vaccine without the eggs doesn’t do a whole lot to get vaccine out the door more quickly, the WSJ reports this morning.
A new Novartis plant, built in the U.S. with a big funding assist from the feds, will grow the vaccine in cultured cells rather than chicken eggs. But that ..read more
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Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 07:00 | Comments Off
Swine-Flu Update: Resistance, Mutations, Declines and ChinaCategories: Wall Street Journal
Here are a few threads from around the world on what’s happening with the H1N1 swine-flu pandemic.
Four patients in the past six weeks had Tamiflu-resistant flu at Duke University Hospital. In at least two of the cases, patients contracted the resistant bug before they had been treated with Tamiflu, a Duke infection-control doctor told the Health Blog. All of the patients were on a cancer ward, and had suppressed immune systems.
Norway reported finding a mutated strain of H1N1 in three ..read more
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Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 08:35 | Comments Off
Rotary Phones! Black & White TVs! Swine Flu Vaccine!Categories: Wall Street JournalJust in case you’re wondering, there’s no industry money behind this rather slick video that features two former senators pushing for new vaccine technology. Instead, taxpayers are picking up the tab through a commission set up by Congress to thwart weapons of mass destruction. “Every penny — and it wasn’t very much — was all government funds from the WMD commission,” the commission’s executive director told the Health Blog. We’ll explain after the video.
Here’s that explanation: “The commission believes that ..read more
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Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 12:11 | Comments Off
Why Don’t More Doctors Discuss Vaccines With Their Patients?Categories: Wall Street Journal
In the push to get Americans vaccinated against both the seasonal flu and the swine flu, infectious disease experts and public health officials are also sounding the alarm about continuing low rates of adult vaccination for a host of other preventable diseases, as I write in my latest column.
Despite evidence that vaccines are among the most cost-effective ways to prevent disease, studies show a pretty high level of ignorance on the part of patients — and a failure by ..read more

