We hope readers of Ye Olde Catalyst are enjoying a relaxing and reinvigorating week. In case you missed it in the holiday rush, there was a fascinating article in the New York Times over the weekend on new directions in cancer drug development. Gina Kolata delves into ongoing efforts by three biopharmaceutical companies to create [...]
This week, The Catalyst focused on the challenges facing our nation’s health care system. In a Forbes column, Merck Chairman, President and CEO Ken Frazier emphasized the impact that short-term decisions can have on future research and development. "Yes, we have to make some tough choices to address our immediate and long-term deficit. But, how [...]
Today, former Rep. Ron Klink (D-PA) has an insightful article on trade that appeared in the Hill that goes to the heart of why a good trade deal is important. Rep. Klink says that, “ensuring strong protections for American innovators is critically important for all workers”. The article points out that, “[f]ree trade must also be [...]
A new Food and Drug Administration (FDA) infographic may help patients and their families better understand the lengthy drug development and review process, which is somewhat complicated and has many steps to ensure safety and efficacy. The infographic shows how a potential medicine is first tested in animals before the drug sponsor and the FDA [...]
Today, we’ve got a guest blog post from an important voice in the fight against chronic disease – Kenneth E. Thorpe, PhD, the Healthy Policy Chair at Emory University and Chairman of the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease (PFCD). He has some good words of advice as health care costs loom large in the national [...]
Back when I was a kid it was common, sadly, for people in their middle ages to suffer from fatal heart attacks or debilitating strokes. These tragedies still occur all too frequently, but we have made great strides in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases thanks in part to the use of cholesterol-lowering statins. [...]
A guest post today on Forbes.com by Merck Chairman, President and CEO Ken Frazier puts the fiscal cliff and medical innovation in an interesting perspective. For many of us, it’s hard to know what the ramifications of the fiscal cliff discussions or proposed policies may have on our day-to-day lives, our health or our economic prosperity. [...]As Dr. John Lechleiter pointed out in his Forbes column this week, innovation – specifically biopharmaceutical innovation – can contribute positively toward our long-term goal of fiscal solvency, so long as it isn’t inhibited by “short-sighted efforts to close the budget gap.” Dr. Lechleiter emphasized that the budget deficit will depend on healthcare costs and [...]
A compelling new report by the Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC), highlights the strengths and weaknesses of 11 economically and geographically diverse countries. The premise of the report, Measuring Momentum, is that protection of intellectual property catalyzes dynamic global economies. This, in turn, sustains innovative industries and high-quality jobs, and in the case of the innovative biopharmaceutical [...]