Pfizer back at the top?

Acquisition boosts pharma giant's status as leading player

(George Doyle/Getty Images)

Based on current Datamonitor forecasts, 38.5% of Pfizer's 2007 prescription sales will face expiry prior to the Wyeth acquisition in 2013. Post acquisition, it is forecast that 34.7% of the companies' combined 2007 prescription sales will be exposed to expiry threat between 2007 and 2013.

The acquisition may dilute the threat, but it will not solve the underlying commercial challenge looming in front of Pfizer.

Read more at: http://www.ptemag.com/Pfizer

Abating counterfeit medicine fears

Approximately 70000 packets of counterfeit medication are feared to be circulating within the UK's National Health Service (NHS) after a wholesaler noticed discrepancies on the product labelling. GS1 UK, an independent global supply chain data standards and solutions organization, believes that the drugs market will continue to be in jeopardy until further checks are established.

Supermarket-style barcodes and RFID offer effective authentication tools, and can provide a key to unique information such as what the medication should be, the manufacturer, the batch number and the expiry date. If the information returned is not a match for the product about to be dispensed, then the pharmacist is alerted to a potential issue and the suspect medication can be withdrawn immediately. Gary Lynch, Chief Executive of GS1 UK, says: "Having a simple system in place to ensure that the packaging and labelling of medication is genuine is a great step towards validating its authenticity, but more importantly it allows manufacturers to respond quickly in the event that a product needs to be recalled."

GS1 completed a pharmaceutical traceability pilot last month (part funded by the EU) to track 15 different types of drugs using standard barcodes and RFID. The pilot system, part of the Building Radio frequency IDentification solutions for the Global Environment project, successfully traced drugs in a live environment, at all levels of packaging, from manufacturing plants in Ireland and The Netherlands to their final destination in London (UK).

"The pilot was a great success and showed that we have everything we need in place to track and authenticate medication," says Roger Lamb, Healthcare Business Manager at GS1. "The next challenge is for every organization in the healthcare sector — on a global level— to start tracing medication electronically. This will reduce the scourge of counterfeit drugs and protect patients from avoidable harm."

http://www.gs1uk.org