NICE has issued a final decision recommending NHS funding for the use of Alimta (pemetrexed) in the treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

The guidance recommends pemetrexed in combination with cisplatin for the first-line treatment of patients whose cancer has spread to the surrounding tissues or other parts of the body and has been confirmed as the type of tumour known as an adenocarcinoma or large-cell carcinoma.

People who are currently being treated with pemetrexed for NSCLC but who do not meet these criteria should have the option to continue their therapy until they and their clinicians consider it appropriate to stop.

Dr Carole Longson, Health Technology Evaluation Centre Director at NICE, said: “Lung cancer is one of the most common cancers in the UK, with around 38,000 people diagnosed every year. The independent Appraisal Committee carefully considered testimonies from clinical specialists and patients as well as available evidence on the clinical effectiveness of pemetrexed. They concluded that pemetrexed could potentially be an important treatment for this group of patients and represented a cost-effective use of NHS resources.”

NICE has published final guidance recommending the use of Stelara (ustekinumab) as a treatment option for adults with severe plaque psoriasis.

It is recommended in cases where the patient is assessed as having severe disease that has not responded to standard systemic therapies including ciclosporin, or for adults who cannot use those therapies.

NICE has added that treatment with ustekinumab should stop if an adequate response has not been achieved by 16 weeks (after the start of treatment) as defined by assessment based on severity of psoriasis and impact on quality of life.

Dr Carole Longson, Health Technology Evaluation Centre Director at NICE, said: “Plaque psoriasis can have a huge impact on an individual, with the condition causing significant discomfort, and in severe cases it can be painful. This new guidance recommending ustekinumab will offer hope to adults whose severe plaque psoriasis hasn’t been helped by systemic therapies including ciclosporin, ethotrexate and psoralen with long-wave ultraviolet radiation.”

Ustekinumab is recommended on the basis that the manufacturer provides the higher dose needed for people who weigh more than 100g for the same price as for the lower dose.

“Two-thirds of patients taking Stelara in placebo-controlled trials saw a significant, visible improvement in their psoriasis in as little as 12 weeks,” said Professor Christopher Griffiths, Professor of Dermatology at the University of Manchester. “This is reflective of what I have seen in clinical practice, with patients experiencing considerable improvements in skin clearance with the added benefit of a convenient dosing regimen.”

Bayer’s Supervisory Board has appointed Dr Marijn E. Dekkers, currently President and CEO of lab equipment manufacturer Thermo Fisher Scientific, to succeed Werner Wenning as CEO from October 1, 2010.

Werner Wenning, who has been Bayer’s CEO since 2002, is to extend his contract of service by eight months to the end of September 2010.

“Mr Wenning has very successfully steered our company for the past seven years. We are grateful to him for consenting to extend his contract of service, thereby ensuring both continuity and an adequate period of transition in these economically difficult times,” stated Dr Manfred Schneider, Chairman of the Bayer Supervisory Board.

“The Supervisory Board believes that, in Dr Dekkers, it has found a highly qualified successor to steer the fortunes of our company. His international experience, goal-oriented approach and proven management skills are very convincing qualities.”

In a transition phase Dekkers will also serve as CEO of Bayer HealthCare, succeeding Arthur J. Higgins who has decided to leave the company during the first half of 2010 for personal reasons.

Higgins was appointed Chairman of the Bayer HealthCare Executive Committee on July 1, 2004, and has been CEO of Bayer HealthCare since January 1, 2006.

“Over the past five years, Mr. Higgins has played a key role in realigning and strengthening our health care business. For this he deserves our thanks and appreciation,” said Werner Wenning.

In addition, the company’s current CFO Klaus Kühn will take early retirement and Werner Baumann, currently a member of both the Board of Management and the Executive Committee of Bayer HealthCare, will be his successor.

In a joint venture, Lundbeck and Teva have launched www.myPDinfo.com to provide answers to common questions following a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Designed for people with Parkinson’s, their families and carers, the new site provides information on the disease itself, as well as many aspects of treatment and practical disease management such as medication, surgery, diet, exercise/physiotherapy and emotional support.

Parkinson’s is the second most common degenerative disorder of the central nervous system and often impairs the patient’s motor skills and speech. In 2008, there were approximately 3.16 million people with Parkinson’s across the US, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, and the number of people affected is set to rise as the population ages.

Maintaining a full and active life is an important part of living with PD, therefore www.myPDinfo.com is focused on promoting independence and helping people with Parkinson’s to make the most of each day.

The site has a section on daily living, hints and tips to help with communication, plus a number of useful tools such as downloadable medication guides and symptom diaries and links to other helpful online resources.

“The internet is fast becoming one of the most important information sources on health issues, not only for people with Parkinson’s, but also for their friends, families and the general public. Websites that contain information on all aspects of life affected by Parkinson’s are such invaluable resources, helping people remain active and therefore able to live as fulfilled a life as possible,” commented Colleen, a person with Parkinson’s living in the UK.

The website content was developed in co-operation with the European Parkinson’s Disease Association (EPDA) multidisciplinary review panel.

The Wellcome Trust and Merck & Co., Inc. have created the MSD Wellcome Trust Hilleman Laboratories to focus on developing affordable vaccines to prevent diseases that commonly affect low-income countries.

The joint venture marks the first time a research charity and a pharmaceutical company have partnered to form a separate entity with equally shared funding and decision-making rights.

The concept is a sustainable R&D organisation that operates like a business, but with a not-for-profit operating model, to address the vaccine needs of low-income countries.

As well as developing new vaccines in areas of unmet need, the Hilleman Laboratories will also work on optimising existing vaccines in resource-limited settings.

“Linking the ingenuity of academic research with the know-how of industry is vital if we are to produce a new generation of vaccines to reduce the burden of infectious diseases in low- income countries,” said Sir Mark Walport, Director and CEO, the Wellcome Trust.

“The Hilleman Laboratories partnership brings together the requisite skills in a powerful way and Merck is the ideal partner because of its impressive history of innovation and contributions to global health which provide a perfect complement to the Wellcome Trust mission to improve health in the developing world."

“There is a critical need to develop new ways for scientific innovation to be translated effectively into new vaccines that can save lives and protect the health of people living in low-income countries," Richard T. Clark, Chairman, President and CEO, Merck & Co., Inc. added.

Merck and the Wellcome Trust will invest a combined cash contribution of £90 million over the next seven years and will support a staff of approximately 60 researchers and developers.

Alcon has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire ESBATech AG, a Swiss biotechnology company.

Alcon will pay $150 million in cash for the company, plus contingent payments of up to $439 million based upon the achievement of future research and development milestones that would be expected to create value for Alcon.

ESBATech is a clinical-stage biotechnology company that has been developing a pipeline of proprietary single-chain antibody fragment therapeutics for topical and local delivery for safe and convenient therapy.

“Biotechnology offers significant growth opportunities in ophthalmology because it has the potential to deliver therapies with superior efficacy and safety relative to existing approaches,” said Sabri Markabi, Alcon’s Senior Vice President of Research and Development and Chief Medical Officer. “Combining ESBATech’s proprietary antibody fragment technology with our expertise in ophthalmic formulation and capabilities in global development will strengthen Alcon’s leadership position in ophthalmology.”

ESBATech has advanced its antibody fragment technology to preclinical and clinical stages in the eye for various diseases. The company has several stable and soluble single-chain antibody fragments in development.

“I am very proud of what our team has achieved in proving clinically that our platform delivers therapeutic antibody fragments with required drug-like properties,” said Dr Dominik Escher, Chief Executive Officer of ESBATech. “All of us at ESBATech are excited to join with Alcon to advance this technology further and to develop products to treat serious eye diseases so that more patients can see better.”

Health Secretary Andy Burnham has backed a proposal made by the New Local Government Network (NLGN) to allow patients to register with any GP, regardless of their catchment area.

The idea was proposed by the think tank in March 2009 as a means of creating more convenient and accessible local health services.

In a report entitled People Power: How can we Personalise Public Services? author Nigel Keohane argued: “Individuals should be allowed to access any GP, whether near their workplace, friends or family – to provide convenience and prevent wasted time.”

The Health Secretary has said that ending the system of catchment areas – where patients have to register with a GP nearest to their home – will help to “drive up standards,” and that he wants it introduced by next autumn.

NLGN said the announcement would help to introduce more choice and convenience for patients and allow them to structure their health needs more effectively.

“Citizens now rightly expect their public services to fit around their daily lives, in terms of convenience, time and point of access, choice of providers and speed of delivery,” said Nigel Keohane.

“A policy to allow patients to access any GP would mean that those who commute to work do not have to take a day off simply for a routine appointment and allow greater choice to citizens over the services they receive.”

The current pharmaceutical model may become irrelevant in the context of the 21^st century’s global healthcare needs, says management consultancy A.T. Kearney in its latest White Paper.

Healthcare is out of balance and, therefore, so is the pharmaceutical industry, the paper claims. It argues that the fortunes of the pharmaceutical industry are driven by the healthcare systems it serves – and virtually every healthcare system is restructuring.

A.T. Kearney believes that the pharmaceutical industry is at a ‘tipping point’ and that it will emerge in a much different form. The report describes three tipping points that relate to what the industry sells, to whom, and how it must be organised.

The first tipping point is due to the move from therapies to service models. Pharma’s traditional customer, the doctor, is increasingly constrained or influenced by formularies, guidelines, IT systems and financial mechanisms. The influence of organisations like NICE mean that the effectiveness of the treatment pathway has become more relevant than the cost-effectiveness of a particular drug.

The second focuses on the shifting global markets. Although it has previously been dominant, likely cost-effectiveness restrictions on medicines will probably result in a decline in the US pharma industry, while healthcare demand is shifting towards the developing world.

A.T. Kearney argues that pharma companies need to view emerging markets in a new light – not just as an opportunity for lowering R&D costs or demonstrating market commitment, but as a source of low-price, breakthrough innovation.

In its third point, the White Paper argues that successful companies in the future will have to become more market-driven as the globally-integrated pharma industry struggles to survive.

A.T. Kearney believes the transition within sales forces in favour of localised ‘market access’ organisations will continue. They also argue that the current shift from wholesale distribution towards direct-to-pharmacy will shift again to direct-to-patient.

The NHS needs to shift the focus from hospitals and secondary care waiting times onto primary care if it is to survive the hard economic climate, says independent body the NHS Alliance.

In a presentation to the Westminster Health Forum, NHS Alliance Chairman Dr Michael Dixon said that the Government and the Department of Health need to recognise primary care’s leading role in a time of economic instability.

“They need to work harder to re-engage frontline clinicians with the needs of the wider NHS, which go way beyond individual consultations with their patients,” he said.

“This will only happen if the Government is prepared to loosen its grip to allow a greater degree of local accountability. Also, by encouraging local co-ownership, with patients as friendly critics, co-commissioners and co-providers will be able to work together to create a local health service that is much better suited to the needs of the local population.”

The NHS Alliance believes that a sustainable NHS needs to move care closer to the patient and reduce the need for expensive technological care.

“McKinsey has estimated that 40% of patients don’t need to be in hospital beds. So we need to ensure that secondary care is used appropriately,” said Dr Dixon. “We can only achieve that if we focus on primary care as an alternative provider of medical services.

“Although changes to general practice have often been prescribed, it is crucial that there is also organic change, which encourages the integration of different services and boosts up the skills mix within practices.”

Patient participation groups are also invaluable, as they enable patients to influence service design and delivery. “In fact, influencing the way a practice works may be as important as patients having the choice of which practice they can register with,” Dr Dixon concluded.

The NHS Alliance brings together primary care trusts’ chief executives and other senior managers, doctors and practice managers, nurses, pharmacists and allied health professionals, along with board chairs and members.

The Pf Awards 2010 has now been launched with a new revamped, easier-to-use website.

The new site provides information on all areas of the Pf Awards, including a list of all the categories open for entry.

This year will be the second year the Awards have included two Account Management categories, open for both Account Managers and Account Teams. These categories recognise excellence in new ways of working for many UK pharmaceutical companies.

It will also be the second year to feature the two new Partnership awards, which recognise the work the industry undertakes in partnership with the NHS.

The Account Management and Partnership categories supplement the existing traditional representative and manager categories that make up the Pf Awards 2010.

The Pf Awards have continued to grow and this year’s dinner at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, Hyde Park, London was a sell-out, with over 650 attendees from over 25 pharmaceutical companies in the UK attending.

The key dates for this year’s awards include:

• Closing date for entries: Monday 25th January 2010
• Assessment Day: Wednesday 3rd March 2010, Walkers Stadium, Leicester
• Awards Dinner: Thursday 11th March 2010, Lancaster, London.

For more information about sponsoring the Pf Awards, call Melanie Hamer on 0844 824 6688 and for more information on entering this year’s awards, log onto www.pfawards.co.uk.