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Greetings!
 Have you noticed what is happening in the pharmaceutical industry lately? It pales in comparison to the major economic news coming out of Washington, but we all should be following this industry as both a scientist and consumer.
Over the last year, the pharmaceutical industry has had a rapid contraction through mega-mergers and buy-outs. While there has been no lack of funds in this industry, there has been a growing concern that under the new administrative health care initiative these companies will not be able to maintain their every increasing revenue streams of the past years. Previously, companies requested and received annual price increases on their drugs, but this behavior could very well change in the future due to: 1) numerous key "blockbuster" drugs are going off patent (e.g. Zoloft provided $1 billon/year revenue for Pfizer, 2) generic drugs will be pushed harder by the health care initiative because they are approximately 60% cheaper than branded drugs and 3) there are fewer 'blockbuster' drugs in the pipelines of the large major pharmaceutical houses; therefore, they are buying companies with drugs in the pipeline.
The latest buy-out announced this week is Merck's purchase of Schering Plough for $41.4 billon; this merger will double Merck's new drugs in the pipeline to 18 that are currently in clinical trials. Six weeks ago, Pfizer purchased Wyeth for $68 billion, and Roche is close to purchasing Genentech for $46.7 billion. In every case, there will be consolidation of products in the pipeline, streamlining research and development, eliminating thousand of jobs, and restructuring to cut costs as generic-drug use grows with the recession driving consumers to spend less on drugs. Merck states that they eventually anticipate a 15% reduction in the combined company's headcount-implying nearly 16,000 fewer jobs with senior scientists among the layoffs.
A couple of issues important for the consumer to consider: 1) Will costs increase due to the monopoly of drug categories? While the Merck/Schering-Plough merger is fairly complementary in product lines, the Pfizer/Wyeth merger brings together competitive drugs in similar categories; e.g. Zoloft/Effexor (antidepressants), Advil/Motrin (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs-NSAID), etc. or 2) What influence will the biologic drugs play on the market?
Biologic drugs are the pharmaceutical embodiments of biotechnology and are important part of the current pharmaceutical armamentarium estimated to increase to $90 billion by 2009 from $40 billion in 2005. These 150 drugs are usually peptides and proteins (especially monoclonal antibodies), but could include some vaccines. Humulin (recombinant human insulin) and Epogen (recombinant human erythropoietin) are examples of biologics and the average costs for a biologic drug treatment is about $72,000/year compared to about $1,000 for conventional pharmaceuticals. Cells or bacteria are used in the production of these drugs, so a "generic" biologic drug may not be possible.
In other countries with centralized health care, the individual drugs costs are generally 50-60% lower than that in the U.S. In the past, the pharmaceutical industry has had more lobbyists in Washington than number of Senators and Representatives combined and has been able to obtain concessions like the Medicare D Drug Bill, without any central purchasing power. What will happen in this administration?
Obviously, there are more questions than answers! We should keep our eye on the pharmaceutical industry, if nothing more than to support our fellow "sisters" scientists being laid off.
United in Friendship through Science,
Dee McManus, Executive Director Note: If you are interested in a complete listing of all my references for this column, feel free contact me at gwised@mac.com. | |
National GWIS News
The SDE/GWIS National Business Meeting will be held June 19-21 at the Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center (BTEC) on Centennial Campus at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC. This will be just a business meeting without a scientific meeting.
Committee meetings and the National Council Meeting will be held on Friday, June 19, with Saturday, June 20 reserved for the Grand Chapter Meeting. The Friday evening social event will be dinner in downtown Raleigh.
Please note that National GWIS has funds for travel to the National Meeting for chapter members who are interested in attending. There are eight $250 awards available-generally one award per chapter. We encourage the chapters to match this award if possible. Information about the travel award will be on the website shortly or contact Dee McManus for more information.
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National News Headlines
On March 9th, President Obama signed an executive order lifting the Bush administration's ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Scientists are celebrating this decision, who say the change will speed up research on stem cells and the development of possible treatments around the world. Read more about the stem cell ban. In addition, President Obama has recently released a memorandum that unequivocally signals the importance that he places on scientific integrity in federal policy making. The president's memo directs the Office of Science and Technology Policy to develop a strategy aimed at preventing political interference in science. President Obama pledged to elevate the role of science in his administration by "ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda-and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology." Read the full presidential memorandum online.
A study finds that a calcium-rich diet was linked to lower risk of digestive cancers. The effect was particularyly strong among women. Read a summary of the study's findings, which were published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Read about Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson's "Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Act".
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| Chapter Activities
 Kappa Chapter met in February at the Butterfly Conservatory at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. Their next meeting will be held on March 28, 2009 in the IMAX Theater at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, NJ. Contact President Anne Pumfery for more information.
Eta Chapter, which will soon be re-established in Chicago, hosted a gathering of GWIS members and guests on February 14th, 2009 at the Hyatt Hotel, during the AAAS meeting in Chicago. Dr. Elfriede Linsmaier-Bednar, and two Ph.D. students, Mori Mosheni and Isabel Caballero, both from the University of Illinois-Chicago, distributed flyers throughout the AAAS meeting regarding GWIS goals and its services for graduate women in the sciences. Dr. Linsmaier-Bednar would like to especially thank Dr. Jennifer Q. Woods, Director of Program Development & Special Projects, University of Chicago, Physical Science Division, for her support in the recruitment drive.
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| Websites of Interest |
| Visit the American Human Development Project (http://measureofamerica.org/) to learn more about their initiative to introduce to the United States a tool for measuring human well-being: the human development index. The project's mission is to stimulate fact-based public debate about human development issues in the United States and to empower people to hold elected officials accountable for progress on issues we all care about: health, education and income.
The Research Channel has a series of podcasts available on their website regarding "What Science is Telling Us About Climate Change".
Keep track of the economic stimulus funding information:
http://www.research.umn.edu/stimulus.html
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Funding and Job Opportunities
The recently passed stimulus bill (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) provided extra funding to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) ($10 billion extra), and the National Science Foundation ($3 billion extra). All funding needs to be spent quickly - within two years - and any funded researcher will be obligated to include many less common reporting requirements related to the stimulative nature of the research (e.g., job creation)
Of the NIH $10 billion, at least $200 million over the next two years is for a new initiative called NIH Challenge Grants in Health and Science Research, to fund 200 or more grants at $1 million each. Click here to view a document summarizing the research supported in "Challenge Topics". This is a unique opportunity to conduct research in a short time frame. The application deadline is April 27, 2009, and grants will begin this fall. Visithttp://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/challenge_award/
If you recently applied to NIH or NSF and received good reviews but were not funded, contact the program officer who oversaw the process.
At the end of the last federal fiscal year, about 14,000 applications were approved for funding but went unfunded. NIH is planning to review these applications to see if any would benefit from two-year funding. This will not be done in a formulaic manner; rather, grants will be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. Program officers will be involved in this process, so it can only help to contact them to discuss your application.
NSF is also planning to fund recently approved but unfunded proposals. Call the NSF program officer in your area if you think your proposal might be in this category.
If you have an existing grant, you may be eligible for a supplement.
The stimulus funding may also be available to expand an existing NIH grant. Some funding will be awarded through a competitive process, while other funding will be administratively allocated. Few details are available at this time, and each Institute and agency will determine its priorities for supplemental funding.
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MentorNet News
MentorNet Outreach Campaign: Steps for Change - HOW IS GWIS DOING?
In January, MentorNet announced the launch of their 2009 Spring outreach drive: Steps for Change. This campaign is targeted to end on March 18th, the date of the first walk in space. To honor this achievement, the "Steps for Change" campaign will feature the tag-line: One small step for you; One giant leap for the future. The goal was to engage 500 new participants during the 50 days of the drive.
Update: On February 16 we met our goal!
MentorNet is pleased to announce that we reached our goal of 500 new participants today! But don't stop now! We'd like to challenge you to continue the great outreach efforts you've already started. We have established a reach goal of 800 new participants in the program by the end date of March 18th.
Organizations that are leading the charge in new protégé members are:
* National Society of Black Physicists;
* Association for Computing Machinery;
* Society of Physics Students.
Those recruiting the most mentors are:
* Association for Computing Machinery;
* Association for Women in Science;
* American Physiological Society and Sigma Pi Sigma (tied).
GWIS Update as of February 28!
New Mentors = 0
New Protégés = 2
It only takes a few minutes a week to make a difference in the life of a new scientist. Please consider participating in this exciting opportunity that GWIS is offering to all members.
If you have any questions or need more information, please contact:
Dr. Kathy Grako, GWIS Liaison to MentorNet ( kagrako@san.rr.com) or visit www.mentornet.net.
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