1. clock
  2. Did a Drug Company 'Buy' One of This Year's Nobel Prizes?

Did a Drug Company 'Buy' One of This Year's Nobel Prizes?

By clock on December 18, 2008.

Probably not:

Rumors swirl, but a Swedish prosecutor will only confirm a "preliminary investigation" into allegations that pharma giant AstraZeneca fixed the Nobels for financial gain.

-------------------------

As for the Nobels, as scurrilous as the charges may sound, there is little evidence to support them. First off, AstraZeneca's ties to the anti-HPV vaccine are tenuous at best: In 2007 it purchased a company called MedImmune, which had developed the viruslike particle (VLP) technology licensed for use in Merck's Gardasil and GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix vaccines -- both designed to prevent HPV infection. The technology, however, is not specific to HPV and companies are working to adapt VLPs and similar techniques for a variety of vaccines, including influenza....

Read the rest...

Tags
Academia

More like this

How do Flu Pandemics Start? Learn by "Picking a Giant Nose" at the Festival!

Nose picking is encouraged at the USA Science & Engineering Festival booth of AstraZeneca, and its biologics research and development arm, MedImmune. Visitors to the booth can “pick” a giant nose and learn how flu pandemics start.

Heartburn that gives you lawsuits

So what does heartburn have to do with diabetes? Funny you should ask. Big Pharma giant AstraZeneca is being sued by 15,000 people who claim that their atypical antipsychotic, Seroquel, causes diabetes.

Seroquel, preemption, prosecution, sex - Is the tide turning?

I'm having difficulty even reading, much less posting about, the river of stories about pharma and device industries, FDA regs, conflicts of interest, and so on. But I'll take a stab here at spotlighting the main events and making some sense of where this is headed.

Are testosterone-deficient men responsible for shortages of a life-saving drug for women with breast cancer?

From Monday's issue of The Press in York, England: