Well, this has been a scorcher. Heat was unrelenting. And the week was hot here inside the Beltway as well as around most places in the country. Where it wasn’t hot, it rained torrents. Even the stock market had a week of wild weather.
The town is nearly deserted. Everyone who is smart is out on vacation. Sadly, I’m not one of them.
Meanwhile, here is what happened.
- GlaxoSmithKline Gets Thumbs Down on Stronger Advair Diskus for COPD – This is one of those rare ones for the books – one where the FDA does not follow the recommendation of an advisory committee. It was not a close, cliff-hanger vote, but a unanimous vote. The company, GlaxoSmithKline, sought a higher dose for the product to treat COPD, though it is currently used at lower doses in that capacity. The company received a non-approvable letter for the application. This may be an example of drug approvals falling victim to today’s environment that sees benefit as almost negligible and risk as all-consuming. In any case, it spells the need for the FDA to begin laying out direction as to the circumstances by which it is going to ignore unanimous advice of advisory committees. – Many of you may be familiar with the ranking of financial blogs by 24/7 Wall Street that ranks the top blogs in that area. edrugsearch.com has done something similar for blogs about healthcare. It is called edrugsearch.com’s Healthcare 100.com the World’s Top 100 Blogs about Health and Medicine. I’m very pleased to add that Eye on FDA made the top 100 and is at number 68 this week.
- Right to Access for Experimental Drugs Denied by Court – Dealing a setback to advocates for access to experimental drugs by those with terminal illnesses, a federal court issued a ruling that rejected the constitutional basis for such a right. The case was filed in 2003 by the Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs and the Washington Legal Foundation.
- edrugsearch.com Rankings for Healthcare Blogs
