pharma companies news from FierceHealthcare

> Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty withdrew promised support for a bill designed to cut healthcare spending by nearly 20 percent by 2015, citing a lack of support from Republican House members. Read more...

> Consolidation is already happening in the medical tourism business: Greenwood Village, CO-based BridgeHealth International has agreed to buy New York-based Medical Tours International. Read more...

Merck has agreed to pay more than $650 million to settle two whistleblower suits, the U.S. Justice Department has announced. One of the suits claimed that the pharma paid providers to use its Read more...

A new study suggests that nearly one-fifth of office-based physicians refuse to see sales reps from the drug and device industry, and nearly 23 percent more won't see the reps unless they set an Read more...

VA dealt a body blow to type 2 diabetes drug Avandia this week, deciding that while it would continue to make the drug available to existing users, officials would no longer allow it to be prescribed Read more...

Two more studies have come out which raise further questions about the safety of diabetes drug Avandia. The first of the two studies, which were published in The Journal of the American Medical Read more...

A group of large vendors that makes its living selling medical data to pharma companies is challenging state laws in Maine and Vermont that make physicians prescription-writing private. The Read more...

Well, I'm convinced now. If you want to stir up a hornet's nest, there's no better way to do so than to take a position (any position, really) on the issue of whether physicians are being swayed Read more...

According to some advocacy groups, it looks like pharma companies aren't coming up with free prescription drugs for the needy Medicare recipients, despite a pointed congressional request eight months ago. Several pharma companies had called off their drug assistance programs for Medicare patients once Part D became effective last year. The drug makers said that they were afraid they'd be accused of violating anti-kickback rules if they kept the programs open, though CMS has since said …

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After years of underfunding, this is now a great time for the vaccine business. Three new vaccines hit the market during 2006 alone, the most known for a single year, and costly new vaccines are likely to find acceptance this year. Vaccines released during 2006 include HPV, which has been linked to the development of cervical cancer, and rotavirus, which kills 600,000 children around the world. And the trend is likely to continue, experts say. Technology breakthroughs, boosted by higher …

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