News tagged with 'Drug Companies'

Aside from rhetoric and divisiveness, NPR is tackling the entire health care debate by looking at how Americans contribute to their own rising health care costs. In this story, direct-to-consumer advertising is shown to have a huge impact on our prescription spending, the third most expensive cost in the U.S. system.

Harry and Louise, the fictional characters who scared Americans about socialized medicine in the 90s, are back and this time their message has done a turnabout as they support health care reform. 

Access to doctors by drug sales reps are down 13 percent, according to a new report.  That translates to about $2 billion a year in expenses and salaries lost to pharmaceutical giants supporting the 90,000 reps who make up the U.S. sales force.  Six percent of doctors reportedly will not see reps from any company.

Upon the news of President Obama's budget proposal, health insurance and health stocks took a dive. Merck led the pack along with insurers behind Medicare Advantage.

You may not know anything about Diana Levine or federal preemption, but her case could impact millions of Americans who take prescription drugs or use FDA-approved medical devices.  Should the FDA be the final word? Should you lose your right to hold corporations accountable? 

A Pfizer executive's helicopter rides to work from her Maryland home has the company rethinking whether executive benefits at a time of job cuts is a good idea.  The executive reportedly has received a bill for $300,000 to cover the cushy commute. 

It may not come as a surprise, but a new study estimates that U.S. pharmaceutical companies spend twice as much marketing drugs as they spend in research and development of new drugs.  The research comes out of York University in Toronto and doesn't even take into account the cost of off-label promotions and the 300,000 conferences a year where doctors are compensated.