Regulating Prescription Drug Marketing in India

The Medical Council of India (MCI) started 2010 with a long awaited bang.On 1/1/10, MCI put out a statement asking the country’s doctors to stop receiving gifts or favours from any pharmaceutical companies and said they must desist from endorsing products. 

As per the MCI, All medical practitioners shall not receive any gift, national/international travel facility, paid vacations ( for self or family),  from any pharmaceutical or allied healthcare industry and their sales people or representatives.The punishments range from censure (for accepting gifts valued between Rs.1,000 and Rs.5,000) to removal from the Indian or State Medical Registry for more than one year (for accepting gifts worth more than Rs.100,000). 

Now the MCI wants the government to regulate the Pharma companies.

“We have already written to the health ministry seeking equal and stringent regulation for these companies. You cannot expect fair play by punishing one group and sparing the other,” Vedprakash Mishra, an MCI member, said.

Authorities said the health ministry is discussing with all stake-holders and a fair outcome will come out.

Presently, the pharma marketing practices are regulated by a few ancient acts like-

• The Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940
• Drugs and Magical Remedies ( Objectionable advertisements) act 1954

And most importantly, SELF REGULATION.

Guidelines for prescription drug marketing in India

View more presentations from Neelesh Bhandari.


Also see-

http://www.drugscontrol.org/

  

Doctors: Stop Taking Pharma Gifts

 

10 facts on obesity

• Overweight and obesity are defined as “abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health”.

• Globally, over 42 million children under five years of age are overweight

• Overweight and obesity are linked to more deaths worldwide than underweight.

• Supportive environments and communities are fundamental in shaping people’s choices and preventing obesity.

Body mass index (BMI) – the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters (kg/m2) – is a commonly used index to classify overweight and obesity in adults. WHO defines overweight as a BMI equal to or more than 25, and obesity as a BMI equal to or more than 30.

READ them all on WHO website.

via who.int

 

 

Top 20 drugmakers

The following is a list of top 20 pharmaceutical companies, ranked by global prescription 

drug sales for the 12 months through September 2009, according to pharmaceutical 

market research company IMS Health Inc.

- via Reuters 

1 – Pfizer – $41.7 billion – (0.8)

2 – Novartis – $36.7 billion – 7.0

3 – Sanofi-Aventis – $35.1 billion – 3.3

4 – GlaxoSmithKline – $34.3 billion – (3.4)

5 – AstraZeneca – $33.2 billion – 7.8

6 – Roche – $31.3 billion – 8.6

7 – Johnson & Johnson – $26.9 billion – (6.6)

8 – Merck – $25.0 billion – (4.1)

9 – Eli Lilly – $19.6 billion – 8.3

10 – Abbott – $19.4 billion – 5.5

11 – Teva – $15.7 billion – 12.3

12 – Bayer – $15.4 billion – 3.9

13 – Wyeth – $14.8 billion – (2.3)

14 – Amgen – $14.8 billion – (3.1)

15 – Boehringer – $14.6 billion – 10.4

16 – Takeda – $14.4 billion – 2.1

17 – Bristol-Myers – $14.2 billion – 5.8

18 – Schering-Plough – $13.1 billion – 4.3

19 – Daiichi Sankyo – $8.5 billion – 3.1

20 – Novo Nordisk – $8.2 billion 11.6

(Source: IMS Health)

The data does not include the results from mega acquisitions by Pfizer and Merck, 

as their deals for Wyeth and Schering-Plough were converted in 4th quarter.

 

E-patients and Medical Communities – Videos

An e-patient is equipped, enabled, empowered, engaged, equal and expert.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take-home message:

Physicians of the 21st century must be qualified to meet the expectations of e-patients. They’re the new generation of patients.

via scienceroll.com

Another great collection of posts and Videos on Scienceroll.com

Good work, @Berci

 

Transplant patient finds kidney online – Power of Technology enabled Communications

via ctvbc.ctv.ca

Dave Wilson has been on a kidney transplant waitlist for four years. Now he’s recovering from a successful transplant, thanks to a donor he found after placing an ad online.
Publicity surrounding the ad finally helped Dave find a donor. Of 30 people who came forward, a complete stranger ended up being a perfect match.

As for the mysterious kidney donor, he’s asked not to be identified.

Is this going to become a trend ? I hope so..

 

Protecting Medical data

 

Healthcare organisations in both the private and public sectors on both sides of the Atlantic should “better protect their medical data and applications,” according to data security company Symantec.

The company’s call came as a report from analysts at IDC claimed the percentage of people in the United States with an electronic health record will rocket from 14% to 60% within the next five years. Electronic patient systems are also in the process of being rolled out in the UK, with Summary Care Records available to some areas of the population via the HealthSpace website.

“The NHS Care Records Service will use the strongest national and international security measures for handling your information,” according to a statement on the NHS website.

“Healthcare organisations today are evermore data hungry, therefore demand for storage has increased exponentially around the world,” commented Mike Jones, principal product manager at Symantec. “We’ve already seen digital medical imaging grow at a rate of 20-40 per cent annually and it’s no surprise that storage of personal medical data is now set to move online.”

via publictechnology.net

Medical data can be very tempting, as it allows the markets access to your non-negotiable expenses. We need to better protect our medical data, otherwise we could be milked dry by vested interests.

 

 

Brain network scanning may predict injury’s effects

A brain scanning technique known as resting-state functional connectivity (FC) could help clinicians identify and even predict the effects of brain injuries such as strokes, according to neurologists at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Originally developed to study how brain networks let various parts of the brain collaborate, FC also appears to enable scientists to link differences in harm done to brain networks to changes in patient impairment, according to results of a study in the Annals of Neurology March issue.

“Clinicians who treat brain injury need new markers of brain function that can predict the effects of injury, which helps us determine treatment and assess its effects,” says Maurizio Corbetta, professor of radiology and neurobiology at Washington University. “This study shows that FC scans are a potentially useful way to get that kind of information.”

via news.cnet.com

Many of the “findings” are downright contemptuous and merely recycled facts.
The FC brain scans need to come up with better applications, more evidence based.

 

Direct Access to Map of medicine via NHS Evidence

Check out this website I found at url4.eu

Map of Medicine Clinicians can now access Map of Medicine pathways quickly and more easily, without having to remember a username and password. Login-free access to England and Wales national pathways is available through NHS Evidence search results. The Map delivers information to clinicians at their fingertips, allowing them to choose what is right for their patients.

The Map provides clinicians with best practice pathways that represent an ideal approach to care from a clinical perspective, incorporating evidence-based information, expert knowledge and national policy. It is an easy to use, web-based solution that is now accessible from NHS Evidence.

Healthcare communities use Map of Medicine pathways as a starting point for clinically-led service improvement, adapting them to reflect service redesign decisions made to meet local challenges. Locally-adapted pathways on the Map are visible across organisations, allowing innovation to be shared quickly. By logging in, clinicians in England and Wales can access locally-adapted pathways, as well as personalisation features and local referral information.

More than 50 healthcare communities are now using the Map to achieve lower healthcare delivery costs, an improved patient experience, reduced hospital admissions and lowered waiting times.

NHS Evidence provides free access to clinical and non-clinical information that demonstrates what high quality care looks like and how to deliver it.

Direct access to Map of Medicine:

* http://nhsevidence.mapofmedicine.com/evidence/map-open/index.html
* http://healthguides.mapofmedicine.com/choices/map-open/index.html

 

7 better ways to use Twitter

Twitter has undergone a shift from sharing Haiku-style details about ourselves (i.e. “I’m eating a hot dog right now”) to a place for brands, links and affiliates. In order to get the most out of this era of Twitter, I recommend following seven steps:

1. Be weary of tools that preach that they allow you to be more effective
2. Don’t use Seesmic or Tweedeck, or any other client
3. Market yourself outside of Twitter; not within Twitter
4. Share Valuable Information Without Trying (scheduling tweets)
5. Respond and cultivate your community
6. Only follow people that provide valuable information
7. Implement Twitter Batching

via howtogetfocused.com

Another set of Advice on how best to use Twitter.

 

Americans see Light – Health care reform passes the Senate approval

Finally, Healthcare reform is a reality. Passed by the House with a 219-212 vote, the bill now goes to President Obama for signing. And to complete the package, a bill of negotiated changes to the newly passed legislation will go to the Senate for a vote. It took a lot to explain ( a 18-day stretch in which Obama traveled to four states and lobbied more than 60 wavering lawmakers in person or by phone to secure passage of the health reform bill) to all the American lawmakers that health is a right and not a derivative of how much one can pay the Health management organizations or Insurers.

The reform package will extend insurance coverage to some 32 million more Americans, adding millions more who can now access health care.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Much of the money in the bill would be devoted to subsidies to help families at incomes of up to $88,000 a year pay their premiums. The bill will allow senior citizens get more help paying for drugs in Medicare. People with health problems that left them uninsurable could now qualify for coverage through a federal program.

Republican critics said the $940 billion legislation was a heavy-handed intrusion in the healthcare sector that will drive up costs, increase the budget deficit and reduce patients’ choices.
 

Related articles

• Hear the cheers as House passes health care reform bill (ritawatson.com)
• 8 Pros and Cons of the New Health-Care Reform Bill (businesspundit.com)
• The House Makes History With Health Care (kristof.blogs.nytimes.com)