Pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office late Wednesday, seeking to halt new rules set to take effect Nov. 1. Here’s the complaint and a Patent Blog post on the lawsuit.What’s Glaxo’s beef? In short, the company thinks the new rule will compromise its ability to fully prosecute patent [...]

  Pfizer CEO Jeff Kindler has donated a couple grand to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, a post over on Brandweek NRX points out. Not terribly surprising, perhaps, given Clinton’s new ideas on health care, and Kindler’s history of donating to Democrats. But it’s sure a switch for Pfizer’s top brass. Kindler’s predecessor Hank McKinnell showered his [...]

  The generics snowball continues to grow, with grocery giant Kroger saying it will now sell more than 300 generic medicines for $4 per prescription. It’s a sweet price for folks without insurance and lower than the co-pays many health plans (including the Health Blog’s) impose for generics.Call it the Wal-Mart effect. The drugs Kroger will [...]

  Going outside to find a new guy to head the largest private biomedical research operation on the planet would have been the conventional choice, so consider Pfizer’s promotion of old hand Martin Mackay the radical approach. Forbes makes the case for Mackay (pictured) as it takes a deep dive on the Pfizer research colossus located [...]

  Republican Senators Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch (pictured, left to right) fired off a letter to the editor in this morning’s WSJ, defending their support of a bill to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. In a sign of how the bill is dividing those on the political right, the senators proclaim their “dismay” [...]

  Yes, this miracle cure is guaranteed to vanquish disease or your money back! This offer is not available in stores, but see your doctor now…With European governments demanding clear proof that new drugs are worth their high cost, drug makers are wheeling and dealing like late-night pitchmen, promising money-back offers to get their new drugs [...]

  John Moores hopes his pet health projects outperform the San Diego Padres, which he’s owned since 1994.Moores, 63, made his fortune in software, but he now spends much of his time on health-care philanthropy. He’s chairman of The Scripps Research Institute and is an influential backer of stem cell research by the San Diego Consortium [...]

  The FDA posted a black-box warning added to Definity, a Bristol-Myers Squibb drug used in conjunction with ultrasound imaging to diagnose heart problems, Dow Jones Newswires reports.The Health Blog reported on Sunday that the agency has been investigating reports of deaths and serious side effects associated with the drug, and that the warning was imminent.The [...]

  The toughest competitor for Genentech’s eye drug Lucentis has been Genentech’s own cancer drug Avastin. Today, though, Genentech said it wouldn’t let wholesalers sell Avastin to compounding pharmacies, which have been taking Avastin out of vials and putting it into pre-packaged syringes for eye treatment. The move could crimp the supply of the cheaper medicine [...]

  A jury ordered Wyeth to pay more than $43 million each to three Nevada women who said the company’s hormone-replacement drugs caused their breast cancer, the Reno Gazette-Journal reports.The jury ruled that Premarin, an estrogen replacement, and Prempro, a combination of estrogen and progestin, were defective products and Wyeth “concealed a material fact about the [...]