Merck Debuts Documentary A Touch of Sugar
Merck’s documentary film, A Touch of Sugar, debuted during the Tribeca Film Festival in April as a part of the company’s America’s Diabetes Challenge: Get to Your Goals. Narrated by award-winning actress and documentary spokesperson Viola Davis, the film dives into the type 2 diabetes healthcare epidemic that affects people in every community across the country, including the actress’ own family. Launched in 2014, America’s Diabetes Challenge is an educational program from Merck that urges people with type 2 diabetes to work with their doctor to set and reach their individual A1C goal.
Change Makers Across the Oncology Community Recognized
The first Cancer Community (C2) Awards — a partnership between AstraZeneca and Scientific American Custom Media — has recognized individuals and organizations who have created positive change in cancer care.
The awards received more than 90 nominations in its inaugural year in four categories.
In the C2 Catalyst for Change category, Dr. Keith Winfrey, chief medical officer at New Orleans East Louisiana Community Health Center, won for his work boosting screening rates for colon cancer from 3% to 80% over the course of six years.
In the C2 Catalyst for Care, This year’s winner was the Centers of Excellence Program from the GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer. In the C2 Catalyst for Precision Medicine, winners celebrated this year included Barbara J. Gitlitz, M.D. and Geoffrey R. Oxnard, M.D., co-principal investigators of the Genomics of Young Lung Cancer Study (GoYLC), the first study of lung cancer in adolescents/young adults under the age of 40.
The winner of the President’s Award — Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance’s Survivors Teaching Students — brings ovarian cancer survivors and caregivers into medical education programs through a dedicated army of more than 900 survivor-volunteers.
Novo Nordisk to power U.S. Operations with Renewable Electricity
Beginning in early 2020, Novo Nordisk’s global production will be completely powered by renewable electricity, with a 10-year goal of achieving zero carbon emissions from operations and transportation. This follows a $70 million investment in a 105-megawatt solar energy installation to be built in Pender County, N.C. When completed, ground-mounted solar arrays will provide renewable electricity to all existing Novo Nordisk U.S. offices, laboratories, and manufacturing facilities, as well as support the new manufacturing facility under construction in Clayton, N.C.
In 2015, Novo Nordisk made a commitment with The Climate Group and The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) by joining RE100, a collaborative, global initiative of businesses committed to using 100% renewable power.
Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals Supports Fellowship
The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) announced the launch of a new fellowship for research on uveitis and other inflammatory eye conditions. The Mallinckrodt Uveitis Research Fellowship, funded by Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, will support an early-career investigator with a one-year grant of $45,000 in their endeavor to conduct innovative research. With the goal of uncovering the mechanisms behind conditions like uveitis, which accounts for up to 20% of legal blindness cases in the U.S., this fellowship will allow a promising ARVO-member researcher to explore causes and components of uveitis and similar disorders in novel ways. (PV)
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Awards…
Bio-IT World Announces Award Winners
AbbVie and Novo Nordisk were honored by Bio-IT World at its 2019 Innovative Practices Awards. AbbVie was honored for co-developing a Web-based structural knowledge management solution called 3decision. It allows the company to transform a massive amount of data coming from in-house and public 3D structures and sequences, into applicable knowledge for drug discovery projects.
Novo Nordisk was honored for its program that analyzes three key real-world data sources and extracts well-structured data. Novo Nordisk migrated Linguamatics I2E and Tableau to its AWS cloud-based global big data and analytics platform. With the new system, Novo Nordisk has reduced manual work by FTEs, reduced vendor spend, automated the process of generating insights, and significantly broadened access to these insights across a global team.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Recognized by EPA
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has recognized Bristol-Myers Squibb with an Energy Star Partner of the Year Sustained Excellence Award for its outstanding contributions and leadership to improve the energy efficiency of facilities worldwide. Bristol-Myers Squibb has earned the Energy Star Partner of the Year award for the past five consecutive years.
Forbes Names BioMarin 4th Best Midsize Employer in America
BioMarin Pharmaceutical has been ranked fourth on Forbes magazine’s 2019 list of America’s Best Midsize Employers, increasing from 51st on last year’s 2018 list. Forbes has previously recognized BioMarin on its most innovative companies and world’s best employers list.
CRF Bracket Executives Receive Awards
The International Society for CNS Drug Development (ISCDD), a nonprofit, independent society focused on improving CNS drug development, has awarded David Daniel, M.D., senior VP and chief medical officer, CRF Bracket, and Gary Sachs, M.D., clinical VP, CRF Bracket the ISCDD 2019 Scientific Leadership Awards. Dr. Daniel and Dr. Sachs were selected for the award based on their globally recognized leadership in establishing reliable methodologies to improve the conduct of clinical research and their unwavering commitment and passion to impact the care of patients.
GCI Health Named Best Midsize Agency
GCI Health has been named Best Midsize Agency to Work For by The Holmes Report. This recognition is determined by a comprehensive survey of employees at agencies throughout North America.
Myriad Genetics Receives Honors
Myriad Genetics has been named to Forbes’ 2019 list of America’s Best Midsize Employers for the third year in a row. Additionally, the company was recognized for the second year in a row in the Women Tech Council’s 2019 Shatter List for actively employing measures to help break the glass ceiling for women in technology.
Optimal Research Recognized for Vaccines Development
Optimal Research, a service of PPD’s Accelerated Enrollment Solutions (AES) business unit, was named the top clinical trial network at the 12th annual Vaccine Industry Excellence (ViE) Awards during the 2019 World Vaccine Congress. The ViE awards celebrate the outstanding achievements of organizations and individuals setting high standards of excellence and advocacy in the vaccine industry.
PPD Recognized for Collaboration with Sites
Pharmaceutical Product Development (PPD) was named the winner of the CRO Quality Award from the Association of Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP) and The Avoca Group during the recent ACRP annual conference in Nashville.
Additionally, PPD has been named to Forbes magazine’s 2019 list of America’s Best Large Employers, marking the second consecutive year the company was selected. The recognition follows PPD’s inclusion earlier this year on Forbes’ list of America’s Best Employers for Diversity.
Sanofi Named One of America’s Best Employers by Forbes
Forbes has named Sanofi one of America’s Best Employers. This is the first time Sanofi has appeared on the Forbes list. Sanofi strives to provide employees with comprehensive benefits and resources to help support their desire to thrive in every dimension of their lives including physical well-being, financial well-being, work-life balance, making a difference, and inclusion and diversity.
Syneos Health Wins Best CRO Award at ViE
Syneos Health has been named the Best Contract Research Organization (CRO) at the Vaccine Industry Excellence (ViE) Awards. The awards recognize the efforts and achievements of companies and individuals in the vaccine industry during the previous year. The company accelerates vaccine study-start up timelines through the Syneos Health Catalyst Vaccine Network, an integrated team of high-performing sites and IRBs.
Syneos Health also was honored for the first ever Association for Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP) Challenge for Sponsors and CROs. The competition, which was conducted at the ACRP 2019 Annual Conference in Nashville, tested competitors’ ability to create solutions for real-world scenarios in real time.
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Global Predictions
Global spending on medicines reached $1.2 trillion in 2018 and is set to exceed $1.5 trillion by 2023.
Net drug prices in the United States increased at an estimated 1.5% in 2018 and are expected to rise at 0%–3% over the next five years.
The number of new products launched is expected to increase from an average of 46 in the past five years to 54 through 2023, and the average spending in developed markets on new brands is expected to rise slightly to $45.8 billion in the next five years, but represent a smaller share of brand spending.
The impact of losses of exclusivity globally is expected to be $121 billion between 2019 and 2023, with the United States accounting for just fewer than 80% at $95 billion.
By 2023, biosimilar competition in the biologics market will be nearly three times larger than it is today, but the key events are under way from earlier patent expiries, except the expected 2023 entrance of biosimilars to adalimumab (Humira) in the United States.
Specialty share of total medicine spending will reach 50% by 2023 in most develop markets as the majority of new medicines have been and will continue to be in specialty classes.
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PharmaVOICE 100 News
Pfizer’s Dr. Freda Lewis-Hall Receives Leadership Award
Freda Lewis-Hall, M.D., chief patient officer at Pfizer, has received the Leadership Award from the Association for Women in Science for fostering a high representation of women in leadership and supportive workplace policies. During her 35-year career, Dr. Lewis-Hall has been on the front lines of healthcare from the standpoints of a clinician, a researcher, and a leader in the biopharmaceuticals and life-sciences industries.
Dr. Lewis-Hall is a PharmaVOICE Red Jacket — 2015.
Johanna Skilling Joins Burson Cohn & Wolfe
Johanna Skilling has joined Burson Cohn & Wolfe as executive VP of strategy and planning. In this new role, Ms. Skilling leads BCW’s North America strategic planning team across all practices. She most recently served as Ogilvy Health North America’s head of planning and is an NYU adjunct professor.
Ms. Skilling is a PharmaVOICE 100 — 2017.
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Woman of the Week Podcast Series
April
Dr. Deborah Dunsire, H. Lundbeck A/S
Liz Lewis, Takeda Pharmaceuticals
Dr. Gisela Schwab, Exelixis Inc.
Sheri Madrid, Advanced Clinical
Please go to https://www.pharmavoice.com/wow-podcasts to listen.
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Contributed Article:
Reporting Social Media-based Adverse Events with Artificial Intelligence: Elaborating the Challenges — Mitigating with Innovation
Provided by: Tata Consultancy Services
Podcast:
A Holistic Approach to Transforming Clinical Trials
Sponsored by: ICON
Webinars:
Medical Storytelling Through Data: More Than Just Information Transfer
Sponsored by: Avant Healthcare
Reaching for 99% Compliance and Engagement in Clinical Trials (OnDemand)
Sponsored by: Datacubed Health
Transform Teams, Programs, and Services: An experience strategy primer to reset your focus and accelerate business objectives (OnDemand)
Sponsored by: Mad*Pow
White Papers:
Behind The Healthcare Revolution: The Changing Scene at Point of Care
Provided By: Rx EDGE Media Network
Safety Profile of the Snalgesic Trezix, Containing the Mild Opioid Dihydrocodeine
Provided By: Wraser Pharmaceuticals
