Tuesday, April 06, 2004

From the Indianapolis Star:
Lilly to air import concerns to panel
Eli Lilly and Co. has uncovered two cases of tampered or substandard Lilly drugs being imported into the United States from Canada and recently worked with two other drugmakers to break an erectile dysfunction drug counterfeiting ring in China.

The Indianapolis drugmaker will discuss those cases and others today in testimony in Rockville, Md., before a federal task force on drug importation.

Lilly's disclosures about its stepped-up anti-counterfeiting measures "go much further than we've ever gone before in providing information about our investigations," said company spokesman Edward Sagebiel.

From MSN:
Two-in-one pills a tonic for sickly drugs industry
Why take two pills when one will do?

That's the message from drug firms pushing a new generation of combination medicines which may help fill corporate coffers and limit the impact of generic competition after a lean period in research laboratories.

On April 2, Germany became the first European country to approve a combination of Merck & Co Inc's (MRK) cholesterol medicine Zocor with Zetia, a new kind of drug that reduces the amount of cholesterol absorbed in the gut.

The combination, which will be marketed as Inegy in Europe and Vytorin in North America, is pivotal for Merck and co-developer Schering-Plough Corp (SGP) and is expected by analysts to garner eventual annual sales of $2 billion to $8 billion. It is likely to win U.S. approval later this year.

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