Opinion Sophia Ononye outlines the history of cannabis as a medicine in the US and, following the first FDA approval of a cannabis-derived drug product in 2018, the highly promising landscape for further approvals.   The landscape for approved CBD products is highly promising and will undoubtedly lead to additional FDA…

Opinion The AAM’s Chip Davis tackles the issue of abandonment within US healthcare and proposes three measures to boost competition, thereby lowering drug prices and reducing abandonment rates.   Generic and biosimilar prescription drugs manufactured by member companies of the Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM) play an integral role in the…

Puerto Rico A long list of multinational pharma companies count Puerto Rico as one of their top manufacturing bases, including 11 of the top 20 global pharma companies. Puerto Rico also manufactures half of the 2018 world’s top 10 bestselling drugs, underscoring the fact that the island is a pharma production powerhouse.…

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico is home to the manufacturing plants for many of the world’s top pharmaceutical and medical device companies, providing a steady stream of treatments to the neighbouring US market and further afield. Here are four facts about Puerto Rican pharma manufacturing that may surprise you.   Fact 1: Puerto…

USA Although Boston and California may be more internationally renowned as biotech hubs, New York is fast catching up. Thanks in large part to its strong scientific and business infrastructure and easy access to capital, growing numbers of early-stage biotechs are choosing to base their operations in New York and list…

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico has long been known for its pharma manufacturing prowess, but multinational companies are increasingly looking to conduct clinical trials there, thanks to strong institutional support, a strong example set by R&D-focused university spin-off companies, and the island’s unique ethnic profile.   The Hispanic population has been historically underrepresented…

Canada Diabetes Canada’s Jan Hux outlines how her organization has been able to shift from small, local programs to driving change at a much larger level via a ‘collective impact’ approach.   When I encountered the concept of collective impact in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, I realized the possibilities lay…

USA In the face of rising costs in American healthcare, Carla Smith outlines five ways in which the US can improve the financial sustainability of its healthcare system.   Let’s take advantage of systems-level expertise and change our reality for the better In the United States, 18 percent of the gross…

Cell & Gene Therapy Medicare, a national health insurance program in the United States covering Americans aged 65 and older as well as younger people with disabilities, has recently announced it will be increasing reimbursement rates and expanding coverage for cell and gene therapy treatments, good news for cancer patients and pharma companies Gilead…

USA PhRMA’s Anne McDonald Pritchett PhD highlights the remarkable development of cell and gene therapies in recent years and the three ways in which the US healthcare system can better accommodate them: creating manufacturing systems that take treatment timelines into account, a health system that values treatments based on patient outcomes,…

USA In a bid to make tangible progress on the issue of lowering prescription drug pricing before the 2020 presidential election, the Trump administration is planning to import cheaper medicines from Canada and elsewhere. However, as the Eurasia Group’s Aditya Bhattacharji and Sandra Yamin Namoos outline, the proposed plan’s impact on…

Pricing Generic drugs foster competition in the pharmaceutical market. Chester “Chip” Davis, Jr.  of the Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM) reveals the data behind generic competition and elaborates on opportunities for further savings.    The American public is clamoring for systemic changes to address skyrocketing drug prices. Specialty drugs—a growing category…