Sick people are big business:

Sick people are big business:

Five things for pharma marketers to know 
 
1. Biogen will pay Forward Pharma about $1.25 billion for the patents to several multiple-sclerosis drugs, including Tecfidera. Tecfidera brought in about $1 billion in sales for Biogen in the third quarter of 2016. (Reuters)

2. The Supreme Court will hear an appeal by Novartis over a decision that prevented the drugmaker from selling Zarxio, the first biosimilar version of Amgen's Neupogen, for six months after approval. Novartis is arguing that the delay, prompted by Amgen's patent claims, improperly gave Amgen six additional months of exclusivity. (Reuters)

3. Merck KGaA inked a deal with Palantir Technologies to analyze its data in a bid to make its drug-delivery process more efficient. Palantir gets a cut of Merck's resulting profits. (Bloomberg)

4. A news investigation found that drugmakers that develop drugs for orphan diseases have received millions of dollars in government incentives for therapies that eventually were approved for mass market indications. (Kaiser Health News)

5. The implementation of Pennsylvania's prescription drug monitoring program led to a drop in the number of prescriptions written for painkillers like Vicodin and OxyContin. (WaPo)


Blockbuster Drugs 
 
'Blockbuster Drug'   An extremely popular drug that generates annual sales of at least $1 billion for the company that creates it. Examples of blockbuster drugs include Vioxx, Lipitor and Zoloft.

There can be a heavy cost to being prescribed 'popular' drugs like Vioxx... my doctor prescribed it to me but a quick Google search alerted me to problems with the drug.  It was given to people for about 9 months after the toxicity was well known.

Vioxx
Initially hailed as a superior non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), Vioxx spent only a few years on the market before it was the focus of thousands of consumer lawsuits. Within five years of being approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of arthritis and menstrual pain, the painkiller was linked to thousands of heart attacks, strokes and deaths. At the same time, the drug’s manufacturer, Merck, vehemently denied any problems.