Pharmaceutical Industry: Chemical Synthesis Production of Acetylsalicylic Acid I. Introduction Pharmaceutical industry is one of the biggest industry in the world as it involves drugs and medications - something that is very stable in terms of demand. This can be proven by the amount of sales as of 2012. Figure 1.1 shows the breakdown of the market of the pharmaceutical industry worldwide. However, aside from the production and synthesis of drugs and medications, the industry is also involved in the research and further development of drugs and medications. Because of the effect of the products of the industry to its market, the industry is subjected to a lot of laws and regulations. These laws and regulations must be met before their products are sold in the market. Figure 1.1 Pharmaceutical Industry Sales as of 2012 Research and development, which constitutes particular phases, in the pharmaceutical industry could either be working towards improvement of existing medicine or creating new drugs for better treatment of diseases. With the help of advances in life sciences such as genomics, molecular biology, and the like, diagnosis of certain diseases are more precise leading to less likely failure of the development of the treatment (Riboud, 2014). In addition, technological breakthroughs such as new tools, smartphones, and information services in recent years have vastly assisted in the analysis of the efficiency of these therapeutical treatments. However, these
Improvements in health care and life sciences are an important source of gains in health and longevity globally. The development of innovative pharmaceutical products plays a critical role in ensuring these continued gains. To encourage the continued development of new drugs, economic incentives are essential. These incentives are principally provided through direct and indirect government funding, intellectual property laws, and other policies that favor innovation. Without such incentives, private corporations, which bring to market the vast majority of new drugs, would be less able to assume the risks and costs necessary to continue their research and development (R&D). In the United States, government action has focused on creating the environment that would best encourage further innovation and yield a constant flow of new and innovative medicines to the market. The goal has been to ensure that consumers would benefit both from technological breakthroughs and the competition that further innovation generates. The United States also relies on a strong generic pharmaceutical industry to create added competitive pressure to lower drug prices. Recent action by the Administration and Congress has accelerated the flow of generic medicines to the market for precisely that reason. By contrast, in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
U.S. based companies hold rights to most of the world’s rights on new medicines and holds thousands of new products currently being developed. As of 2012, the industry helps support almost 3.4 million jobs in the U.S. economy. It is also one of the most heavily R&D based industries in the world. In the United States, the environment for pharmaceuticals is much friendlier than other countries around the world in terms of pricing ability and regulations. Both the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology industries have experienced significant growth in the past year with year-over-year increases of 13.02% and 34.69% respectively. It is an even more striking when looking at the past five years considering both have beat out the S&P 500 with pharmaceuticals increasing an additional 31.44% and the biotechnology sector besting an astonishing 269.3% more return than the
The activity was separated into 4 parts concerning 5 different groups of elements. In the first part, we had identified the physical state, the color, and the solubility in water of the Carbonates of I-A and II-A Elements. The elements Na2 Co3, Li2 CO3, Mg CO3, Ca CO3 had a powdery appearance while Ba CO3 had a ball shape appearance and K2 CO3 had a wet, granule appearance. All of the elements stated have a white color. The elements Na2 Co3, Li2 CO3, K2 CO3 were soluble to water while Mg CO3 Ca CO3 Ba CO3 were not. For the second part, we had identified the physical state and the color of some of the Group IV-A Elements. Carbon had a powdery appearance and it is black in color. Silicon had a ball-shaped appearance and it is countable and it is pinkish-white in color.
A twenty-five-year old Caucasian female presented to the office with burning with urination. External inspection of the patient’s labia majora revealed genital herpes. Herpes simplex virus infections associated with the genitals are usually deemed type two (Uphold & Graham, 2013). The patient was placed on acyclovir for her outbreak. The current dosage that she is being placed on is 400 mg orally every eight hours for ten days (Medscape, n.d.). There are no medication contraindications for this drug; however, one should not use neomycin orally due to an increase in nephrotoxicity and or otoxicity if the two are taken together (Medscape, n.d.). Other medications such as bacitracin and cidofovir should also not be used with acyclovir due to an increase in nephrotoxicity and or otoxicity if these are
1. On balance, do you think Merck is an ethical and socially responsible company? Why or why not? How about Pfizer?
The patient is an eight-year old girl who is taking hydrocortisone, neomycin, and polymyxin eardrops for the diagnosis of a bacterial ear infection. The dose is 10mg (1%)/3.5mg (0.35%)/10000 units/10ml and was instructed to take this medication every six to eight hours with three drops in the affected ear. The medication has multiple classes since this medication contains multiple drugs. Hydrocortisone is a corticosteroid medication that works to decrease inflammation within the ear. Neomycin and polymyxin are within the antibacterial class and work to combat infection. The combination of the drug helps to eliminate the bacteria within the ear; decrease pain, redness, and itching that were accompanying her bacterial
While the steps to bring a new drug to market may seem extensive and costly, they are a necessity. Clinical drug trials provide options for people with diseases while also allowing doctors to improve the way they diagnose and treat these diseases. The process is long, but the benefits that new drugs have to offer, is
The United States Patent and Trademark Office is overloaded with thousands of applications a year, given an applicant can even get their patent filed. In the pharmaceutical industry, the patent process is in dire need of being reformed. A typical patent last twenty years and the process is a little different when it comes to manufacturing drugs compared to other industries. Partly because in the medical field research is more or less openly shared. However, on the pharmaceutical side the more concealed the better the chances are to get good profitable returns. During the beginning stages of getting a drug to market the drug must be tested and adhere to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) guidelines. An FDA approved drug means that the
The industry is impacted by financial challenges for drug development and diagnostics (2016). The cost of drug development may rise due to more complex procedures, i.e. biomarker analysis (2016). The underdevelopment of pharmaceutical regulations (2016), relating to personalised medicine, may threaten the introduction of these treatments and diagnostics in healthcare. The pharmaceutical industry is also faced with scientific challenges in the development of personalised medicine, many of the sciences used to develop drugs and diagnostic techniques are emerging and not yet fully developed, molecular profiling for example (2016) leading to the choosing of an incorrect biomarker for a disease can prove extremely costly and timely for drug development programs as explained by A. Ayers (2016). The handling of more complex data may result in the need for new, more powerful computing and statistical methods (2016).
By being more involved in the industry the government would re-assert its overseeing authority and gain control over the process. Also, by breaking down their monopolies on the products they produce and the markets would help lower the prices of most drugs. An industry with the responsibility of the health of a population should not be ran by profit seeking businessmen alone without regulation. By setting profit caps, limits on how much these companies can spend on their marketing strategies the government can restructure pharmaceutical companies to focus more on their research products rather than their business tactics and competitive edge. This is the only way the industry will operate optimally and produce the best results for the population and not the
The Mission of PhRM is, “To conduct effective advocacy for public policies that encourage discovery of important new medicines for patients by pharmaceutical and biotechnology research companies.” [ (PhRMA Reasearch, Progress, Hope Health Coutcomes Reasearch, 2013) ] PhRMA does extensive research on the different medical treatments from a variety of sources. The research
The overwhelming success and profitability of pharmaceuticals has given rise to an increased amount of companies getting into the medication business. To be sure that medications are safe for use on humans they are heavily regulated. Pharmaceuticals is one of the most heavily regulated industries. The FDA does not approve any drug unless it is heavily tested and been through vast clinical trials. Pharmaceutical companies have to prove that new medication benefits outweigh all the risks involved. There are also many regulations regarding the labeling and marketing of medications to ensure that they are not false or misleading to the public in any way, shape or form.
The pharmaceutical industry includes companies that research, develop, market or distribute generic and branded drugs. The industry expanded during the 1980’s and drugs to treat heart disease and AIDS were prominent. Consumer demand for nutritional supplements and alternative medicine increased during the 1990’s with the Internet facilitating direct purchases of drugs. Advertising for direct consumption of pharmaceutical drugs became more prominent; pharmaceutical companies were criticized for over medicating personality or social problems.
Therefore, protection of patents is one of the key conditions necessary for further development of the pharmaceutical industry. At the same time, non-efficient legislation that does not provide the necessary level of patent protection is one of the factors that hamper expansion of “Big Pharmaceutical” companies to the developing countries8.
This report provides an analytical strategic review of the global pharmaceutical industry; its origin, evolution,