Allergan Inc.’s counting on a new supplier, Nicholas Piramal India Ltd. of Bombay, for a trio of its anti-glaucoma treatments.
Nicholas Piramal is set to provide bulk raw drugs that go into making Betagan, Alphagan and Alphagan-P, three of Irvine-based Allergan’s glaucoma drugs.
The supplier paid 133 million Indian rupees, or about $2.9 million, to buy out a contract and assets related to the Allergan deal from Alpex International, a Pakistan company that had the development rights.
Nicholas Piramal said it expected to ship the bulk drugs to Allergan by mid-2005.
Sales of Betagan, Alphagan and Alphagan-P, a more advanced formulation of Alphagan, exceed some $300 million a year.
For its part, Nicholas Piramal is increasing its contract work for what it calls “innovator” companies, and has said it hopes that collaborations with Allergan and others will increase its export sales to half of overall sales in five years from less than 10% today.
Allergan, meanwhile, is tackling a couple of issues that go along with making its blockbuster drug that is a favorite with the Hollywood set.
Late last month, Botox was mentioned in media reports after a few patients of Advanced Integrated Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., allegedly contracted botulism. Botox, a wrinkle remover, contains a tiny amount,only about a few billionths of a gram, according to Allergan,of highly purified botulinum toxin protein refined from the bacterium Clostridium botulinum.
Allergan moved quickly to quell the speculation, issuing a press release saying it was working with state and public health authorities to investigate the matter.
Now it looks like the patients might have been injected with an unlicensed botulinum toxin from a Tucson, Ariz.-based supplier, according to an Allergan release.
After initially falling some 4% on news of the investigation, Allergan’s stock has bounced back.
The drug maker also learned that Hollywood power couple Irena and Mike Medavoy filed a motion for a new trial of a high-profile suit it won. A jury found Dr. Arnold Klein and Allergan not guilty in the suit that the Medavoys filed after Irena allegedly suffered side effects from Botox treatments.
Hospitalist Findings
A combination of hospitalists,doctors who manage a patient’s healthcare in a hospital,and clinical pharmacists is a good one, according to a study.
The research found that hospitalists and pharmacists shorten the length of stay, lower medication costs and improve clinical outcomes for hospitalized patients.
The study wasn’t independent. It was done by Dr. Saeed Syed, a hospitalist at Irvine-based Cogent Healthcare Inc., which provides patient management programs to hospitals.
Syed performed his study at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center in East Patchogue, N.Y. It looked at patients who were treated by voluntary attending physicians and those treated by the Cogent hospitalist and clinical pharmacist team.
In a release, Syed said he found that patients under the care of the hospitalist-pharmacist team had a 23% shorter length of stay, a 21% lower medication cost and 1.5 fewer drugs per patient than the comparable patient group treated by the attending doctors.
Syed also said that patients treated by the team needed less nursing care and had a reduced risk of adverse drug reactions and medication errors.
Medical errors have been a hot topic in healthcare circles for several years now, particularly as a cause of increasing healthcare costs.
A recent report by Health Grades Inc., a healthcare rating company, claimed as many as 195,000 people per year could be dying in U.S. hospitals because of what it called “easily prevented” medical errors.
Besides hospitalists, Cogent also provides communication and data management programs to support its doctors.
Outsourcing Talk
Outsourcing will be the focus of a Jan. 12 panel discussion hosted by the Life Science Industry Council, an association of Orange County device and life science companies.
Elaine Levin, partner in the life sciences group of the law firm of Preston Gates & Ellis LLP’s Irvine office, is the event moderator.
Topics include strategies to control and manage outsourcing, including costs, time and delivery requirements; quality assurance and intellectual property; domestic versus foreign opportunities; trends in outsourcing for large life science companies; and how entrepreneurial companies can use outsourcing and “even create a virtual company.”
The meeting is set for 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. at the Hilton Irvine/Orange County Airport, 18800 MacArthur Blvd. For more information, visit www.elinc.org.
Bits and Pieces:
Health Care Legal Services moved its headquarters from Orange to the Brookhollow Office Plaza in Santa Ana. Health Care Legal Services works with state hospitals on government reimbursement-related issues … Info Link Orange County, which provides healthcare and human services referrals, moved from Irvine to Costa Mesa. Funded by the United Way, Info Link is the county’s “211” service provider. Residents can dial 211 for access to health and human services agencies … The Newport Beach office of St. Louis-based McCarthy Building Cos. said it completed construction on a $28 million, five-story office tower on Torrance Memorial Medical Center’s campus.
