Indian Pharma industry to touch $55 billion in 3 years, a study reveals

Indian pharmaceuticals market is expected to touch $55 billion by 2020, from the $36.7 billion of 2016 according to a study jointly conducted by Assocham and research firm Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management (IITTM).
According to this study India is likely to be among the top three pharmaceutical markets by incremental growth and sixth largest market globally in absolute size by 2020.
Indian pharmaceuticals market increased during from 2005 to 2016 up to $36.7 billion.
The study reveals that in the first six months of 2016 alone, close to a hundred thousand foreign tourists have arrived on a medical visa making it a very lucrative market.

Allergan to acquire Zeltiq Aesthetics for $2.48 billion

“The acquisition of Zeltiq is highly complementary and strategic to Allergan,” Brent Saunders, Allergan’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement. “By adding the best-in-class body contouring CoolSculpting System to our best-in-class facial aesthetics, plastic surgery and regenerative medicine offerings we are creating a world-class aesthetics business.
With CoolSculpting, our offerings to plastic surgeons, dermatologists and aesthetic practitioners will now extend to three of the largest and fastest-growing segments of their practices, putting Allergan in a unique position to provide expanded customer service, and help meet the needs of patients.”
This new acquisition of CoolSculpting system, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is important to Allergan as it estimates that body contouring is a $4 billion market.
Furthermore Allergan has been involved in numerous acquisitions over the last year: it acquired Acelity’s LifeCell, which manufactures and markets products for breast reconstruction and soft tissue repair and the biotech company Vitae Pharmaceuticals
Allergan already has a big aesthetics business, with Botox, line fillers, implants and eye care. MoreoverAllergan has a lot of expectations for its injection Kybella, used to diminish fat under the chin, in 2017.
Allergan had the 28% of its net revenue, in the three months ended Dec. 31 2016, coming from medical aesthetic product sales.
The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2017.

US: Seema Verna to lead the CMS

U.S. President Donald Trump has choosen who will lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Senate Finance Committee held a confirmation hearing for Seema Verma, best-known for her role in reshaping the Indiana Medicaid program known as the Healthy Indiana Plan 2.0.
Among the Verma’s aims in this her new role there is the review of the system by which pharmaceutical companies classify products as generic or branded, in order to help hold down government spending.
In explaing why the the review is needed she cited Mylan NV’s EpiPen emergency allergy treatment, that has been criticized for listing EpiPen with Medicaid as a generic product even though it listed it with the Food and Drug Administration as a branded product. The classification led to Mylan’s paying significantly smaller rebates to the Medicaid healthcare program for the poor than if EpiPen were classified as branded.
“I would like to review the processes in place there, in terms of the classifications, in terms of brand and generic, to ensure that type of thing doesn’t happen again,” Verma said.
Mylan has also come under fire for raising the price of a two-pack of EpiPens to $600 last summer from $100 in 2008. Mylan began selling a generic version of EpiPen for $300 per two-pack in December.
Seema Verma did not answer questions about whether the U.S. government should negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over drug prices.

EMA after it leaves UK has plenty of choice where to move to

EMA and its 900 highly skilled staff will have, once UK leaves the EU, as many as 20 EU countries to pick from as location for the new headquarter.
The latest country to joining in and askint to host EMA is Portugal. Indeed if Portugal will manage to host the EMA it is likely to have a huge knock-on effect for medical and pharmaceutical industry.
The EMA’s chief role is to act as the regulatory agency deciding if products are safe for the European single market. Two Portuguese ministers visited its HQ in Canary Wharf on Monday and acknowledged that competition to house the agency is going to be stiff across Europe.
The Portuguese minister of health, Adalberto Campos Fernandes, said before the visit: “We have been actively engaged in the European medicine system from its inception and the Portuguese medicine agency, Infarmed, is highly regarded in the assessment procedures of medicines, being one of its major contributors in several roles.”
Lisbon, like almost every candidate city, is touting itself as being committed to the EU, with a cosmopolitan culture and a vibrant medical research industry.

Prescription drug spending slowed in 2016

In its latest “Drug Trend Report”,Express Scripts Holding Co, the largest pharmacy benefit manager in the United States, highlighted that prescription drug spending for its members slowed to less than 4 percent in 2016.
The PBM company has also underlined how in a year where the high cost of prescription medications dominated headlines, it delivered value beyond and practiced pharmacy smarter, driving down costs and improving outcomes, as 33.0% of employers with a pharmacy plan managed by Express Scripts spent less per person on prescription drugs in 2016 compared to 2015.
In the report it is also said that brand-name list prices increased about 10,7% in 2016.
Drug prices have been also recently described by President Trump as “astronomical” and urged pharmaceutical executive to manufacture more of their drugs in the United States and cut prices.
In a recent interview with CBS news Express Scripts CEO Tim Wentworth had to defend the role of PBM companies in general (and the one of Express Scripts) from the accusation to contribute to raise the drug prices.
“Pharma companies determine their prices and pharma companies determine whether or not they want to discount their price at a cost level through rebates or if they want to lower to a list price that is discounted,” Wentworth said.
As reported by CBS news, Wentworth was also asked if he would be willing to be more transparent about how much Express Scripts makes from rebates.
“We support absolute transparency with our clients,” he said, and explained that Express Scripts’ clients can use its online digital tools to see balances in their high-deductible plans, drug prices, the lowest-cost retail pharmacies to purchase them, and more.

Eli Lilly to cut 200 jobs in R&D area globally

The Indianapolis-based company is planning to reduce by 3% its worldwide R&D workforce, so it can refocus its efforts on certain key research areas.
The company is hoping to get to a volontary exit offering a compensation package to employees who choose to leave the company.
However, there was noo public statement on the decision issued.
According to spokewoman Amy Sousa, Lilly will refocus its efforts in the areas of Alzheimer’s disease and immunology:
“We’ll be focusing in on these areas where we need certain areas of expertise, we want to continue to have a great pipeline of potential medicines. We’re focusing on some areas where we think we have some great opportunities.”
This last move is not related to the recent failure of the company’s Alzheimer’s drug Solanezumab. that lead to about 500 field positions cut.
Lilly has about 40,000 employees worldwide.

Almost like the VISOR in ‘Star Trek,’ the eSight 3 lets low vision wearers do almost anything

In Star Trek: The Next Generation Geordi La Forge wore a headset called VISOR that helped him see again, now this “visor” is not anymore a “gadget” from a sci-fiction but reality.
This headset that helps the legally blind see is made by medical technology firm eSight.
The eSight 3, this is the name of the new product, can enhance legally blind people’s ability to see with a combination of a liquid lens, optical prisms, and a high resolution display.
Yvonne Felix, beta-tester number one for eSight, tells about her experience: “I remember putting them on and looking up and I saw my husband who I’d been married to for eight years and had never seen before and my 2-month-old son, who we had just brought home from the hospital and he was holding him and it was the most beautiful image, like it’s burned in my mind for the rest of my life.”
The eSight 3 camera, the latest one, looks like a smaller, more elegant version of the increasingly popular virtual and augmented reality headsets. It fits over her eyes and corrective glasses. The front is equipped with a single HD camera and two sensors.
There are 300 million legally blind people in the world, 3 million of which live in North America.
They are all potentially candidates to use this device (which costs about $10,000).

You can receive directy in you mailbox our weekly update on Pharma Industry news just subcribing to Pharma Horizon e-newsletter.
Go to: http://www.teknoscienze.com/register/ and get your free subscription!