New Healthcare-related Products, Services, and Companies
New Healthcare Marketing and Communications Agency Created
The agency helps clients identify situations and places where behavior can be influenced. Identifying a need to provide clients with a way to compete more effectively in today’s dynamic pharmaceutical marketplace, Guy D. Dess, CEO, leads a new, independent healthcare marketing and communications agency, Dess Marketing · Messaging. Dess Marketing · Messaging offers an array of analytic tools, services, and creative, all aimed at helping clients compete more effectively. Additionally, the agency is part of the Convergence 360 group, which provides critical commercialization services to emerging life-sciences companies, and through this association the agency offers the entire range of marketing services from e-marketing to medical education to healthcare econometrics to managed-care marketing. The agency provides clients with a competitive edge through its two proprietary methodologies: Drug Decision Hierarchy and BrandStory. Using its Drug Decision Hierarchy model, the agency helps clients identify situations and places where behavior can be influenced so that marketing managers can make more effective use of their allocated marketing dollars. Through its proprietary BrandStory methodology the agency helps clients use everyday language to create a more compelling and effective sales communication vehicle. Our goal is to help clients compete more effectively and to help their brands capture more market share in their respective categories, says Guy D. Dess, Founder and CEO, Dess Marketing · Messaging.
FDA Publishes Guidance on Communication of Drug-Safety Information
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued final guidance describing its current approach to communicating drug-safety information, including emerging safety information. Important drug-safety information has the potential to alter the benefit/risk analysis for a drug in a way that can affect decisions about prescribing or taking the drug. The guidance affirms the agency’s commitment to communicate important drug-safety information in a timely manner, including those situations when the agency is still evaluating whether to take a regulatory action. The guidance, Drug Safety Information-FDA’s Communication to the Public, is intended to make emerging information on drug-safety issues available to the public, and facilitates patient and healthcare provider access to the most current information concerning the potential risks and benefits of a marketed drug. FDA’s drug-safety communications are available through the FDA Website. Wiley-Blackwell Launches New Peer-reviewed Journal Wiley-Blackwell has launched the Archives of Drug Information (ADI), a new open access, freely available peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing the results of drug studies. This journal helps to address requests for transparency voiced by societies, healthcare practitioners, patients, media, and the government to disclose clinical-trial information. ADI also publishes articles on inconclusive and/or negative clinical trials, early drug development, routine drug-drug interaction, and pharmacokinetic studies. While some government and pharmaceutical companies provide repositories to register clinical data and public databases to post clinical-trial results, sources for independent publication are limited. As a result, the findings of many drug-development studies and clinical trials remain unpublished. ADI bridges this gap by publishing data from clinical trials, thereby disclosing results promptly to the researcher, clinician, and the public. “ADI provides an unbiased, scientific home for high-quality information that should be in the public domain but currently resides on file somewhere,” says Dr. C. Michael Stein, Editor of Archives of Drug Information. “It will also help prevent scientists in drug development from repeating mistakes or following the same blind alleys others have explored because that information has never been published.” ADI will publish a broad range of research, including cellular, animal, and human studies. Palio Adds Media Lab As communication vehicles evolve, our clients need the most competitive tools to connect with and engage their audiences in the markets in which they compete, says Donald Conn, Director of Palio’s media lab. Palio Communications, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., has added a full-service video, audio, and multimedia production media lab as a service to clients, under the leadership of Donald Conn. The media lab builds on the full-scale, on-site, broadcast production unit the agency launched in 2003. Since that time, the agency has produced TV and radio spots, movie trailers, videos, DVDs, and Webcasts. The service includes all preproduction and postproduction work: original music, location work, talent casting, negotiations, and contracts. In addition, the media lab now offers media duplication, product placements, Podcasts, flash programming, multimedia design for new and emerging technologies, presentation, and interactive media design. M&A Activity Access Pharmaceuticals, Dallas, has signed a letter of intent to acquire Somanta Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company based in Irvine, Calif., which has four novel anticancer compounds in development. Access Pharmaceuticals is an emerging biopharmaceutical company that develops and commercializes propriety products for the treatment and supportive care of cancer patients. For more information, visit accesspharma.com. Huntsworth Plc., United Kingdom, has acquired independent healthcare specialty agency Dorland Global Corp., Philadelphia, to be the U.S. footprint for its health division. Huntsworth is a publicly held communications company that provides global integrated communications, including market research, Internet services, public and professional relations, as well as branding and marketing communications activities. Business at Dorland Global continues without interruption. For more information, visit huntsworth.com. For more information, visit dorland.com. Eli Lilly and Co., an Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical company, and Hypnion Inc., Lexington, Mass., have signed a definitive merger agreement. Hypnion is a privately held neuroscience drug-discovery company focused on sleep disorders. The acquisition provides Lilly with a broad and substantive presence in the area of sleep disorder research. For more information, visit lilly.com. For more information, visit hypnion.com. Publicis Groupe, Paris, a healthcare communications group, has announced the acquisition of healthcare and pharmaceutical services company Pharmagistics, Somerset, N.J. The acquisition extends Publicis Healthcare Communications Group’s (PHCG) position in the healthcare communications’ global network. Pharmagistics remains a separate unit within PHCG, with its own identity, and the integration of its services with other PHCG businesses remains flexible. For more information, visit publicisgroupe.com. For more information, visit pharmagistics.com. Shire Plc., a specialty pharmaceutical company based in Hampshire, United Kingdom, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire New River Pharmaceuticals Inc. & Associates, Radford, Va., for $64 per share of NRPH common stock. This is about $2.6 billion for the fully diluted equity interest of New River, which is a specialty pharmaceutical company developing novel pharmaceuticals that are generational improvements of widely prescribed drugs in large and growing markets. For more information, visit shire.com. For more information, visit nrpharma.com. Takeda Pharmaceutical Ltd., a research-based company based in Osaka, Japan, has entered into an agreement to acquire Paradigm Therapeutics Ltd., Cambridge, United Kingdom. Subject to completion, Paradigm becomes a subsidiary of Takeda Europe Holdings B.V., and will be renamed Takeda Cambridge Ltd. Paradigm’s subsidiary in Singapore will be renamed Takeda Singapore Pte. Ltd. For more information, visit takeda.com. Around the Globe Averion International Corp., Southborough, Mass., a full-service CRO, is strengthening its European operations by opening four European-based offices. The new German Averion office is located near Frankfurt and provides financial, administrative, and operational support for the company’s European operations. In the United Kingdom, Averion is located in Shropshire and oversees operations for clinical trials in northwestern Europe. Averion Clinical Research is located in Austria and is responsible for Averion’s Central and Eastern European operations. The Polish Averion office is located in Warsaw and provides operational support and coordination of studies in Poland and the Baltic States. For more information, visit averionintl.com. INC Research, Raleigh, N.C., a therapeutically focused CRO, has opened a new European office in Zurich, which is managed by Dr. Hans Joerg Moebius, senior VP of the CNS practice. The facility serves as an additional base of clinical operations in Europe and allows for future expansion in the region. For more information, visit incresearch.com. Follow up Dess Marketing · Messaging, Mountain Lake, N.J., part of the Convergence 360 group, provides critical commercialization services to emerging life-sciences companies. For more information, visit convergence360.com. Food and Drug Administration, Rockville, Md., promotes and protects the public health by helping safe and effective products reach the market in a timely way and monitors products for continued safety after they are in use. For more information, visit fda.gov. Palio Communications, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., an inVentiv health company, is a full- spectrum advertising and communications agency. For more information, visit palio.com. Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken, N.J., is an academic and professional publishing company. For more information, visit wiley.com.
