Title: --->FDA --- Hand in the cookie jar<----
Birdbomb - April 14, 2006 04:22 PM (GMT)
FDA Staff Travels on Drug Industry Dollars
WASHINGTON, March 30, 2006 — Through an apparent loophole in agency rules the Food and Drug Administration has allowed its employees to receive more than $1.3 million in sponsored travel since 1999 from groups closely tied to pharmaceutical and medical device companies.
FDA policy bars employees from taking trips paid for by the drug, medical device and other companies the agency regulates or by their trade groups. But the Center for Public Integrity has found nonprofit associations that draw their members, their boards and even some of their funding from medical and pharmaceutical-related companies paying for the travel of hundreds of FDA employees. ......
FDA backlog = Billions for Big Pharma?
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Big Pharma could land billions of dollars in annual sales that it would have lost to generic competitors thanks to a Food and Drug Administration backlog of applications for generic drugs.
Some $100 billion worth of branded drugs are expected to go off patent over the next five years. In theory, this should translate into lost revenue for branded drug companies because they would face a plunge in sales as they compete with low-cost generic versions of their drugs.
But the FDA's Office of Generic Drugs, which reviews applications for generic drugs, faces a bottleneck of some 800 applications. This is the result of a 36 percent surge in applications last year, according to the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, citing statements made by Gary Buehler, director of the Office of Generic Drugs, at a GPhA conference in February.....
Is Big Pharma Paying FDA Staffers to Go Away?
Last week the Center for Public Integrity reported that "Through an apparent loophole in agency rules the Food and Drug Administration has allowed its employees to receive more than $1.3 million in sponsored travel since 1999 from groups closely tied to pharmaceutical and medical device companies."
The center also identified ten FDA officials who took more than 25 trips each, often serving as speakers at the events they attended. The FDA safety board, created after the Vioxx debacle, appears to be in particular trouble. Seventeen of the board's 29 members have taken more than a combined 160 privately sponsored trips.......
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