Word: gao
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...cost of prescription drugs, the pharmaceutical industry's standard defense is that companies have to plow so much money into researching innovative new medicines. But a recently released report from the Government Accountability Office casts doubt on that rationale. Yes the industry is spending heavily on R&D, the GAO found, but it turns out big pharma isn't actually generating such a good return on their investments...
...pharmaceutical firms submitted to the Food and Drug Administration for potentially groundbreaking new drugs during that 10-year period increased only a meager 7%. And since 1995, the applications for these innovative drugs have been dropping each year. "The productivity of research and development investments has declined," the GAO concluded...
...Ironically, the shrinking pipeline comes at a time when basic science is bursting with new breakthroughs in fields like human genome decoding, which in turn have raised hopes for breakthrough cures and treatments of serious illnesses. But the numbers show otherwise. The GAO reviewed all 1,264 of the new drug applications submitted for FDA approval from 1993-2004 and found that 60% of them were actually for what industry analysts call "me too" drugs-variations of medications already out on the market. Only 12% of the applications were for what the FDA classified as "priority" new drugs-that...
...three Democrats who asked for the GAO study-Rep. Henry Waxman, Sen. Edward Kennedy and Sen. Richard Durbin-pounced on its findings as proof once more that corporate greed in health care is shortchanging consumers. "The report shows that much drug industry research doesn't translate into real breakthroughs for patients," says Kennedy. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which represents the drug industry, fired back that the GAO report only confirms that developing new drugs has become a more expensive, difficult and risky exercise for manufacturers. "Researchers are tackling increasingly complex diseases using new tools-such as genomics...
...Gao's arrest is just one example of the daunting obstacles these lawyers still face. Many say that as their visibility has increased, so have measures deployed to control them. Earlier this year the All China Lawyers Association, a national organization that attorneys are required to join, issued new guidelines stipulating that law firms should assign only "politically qualified" lawyers to handle cases involving joint litigation by 10 or more plaintiffs or issues related to safeguarding rights. Lawyers taking such cases were ordered to "accept supervision and guidance" or else be subject to punishment. According to a lawyer involved...