Tuesday, December 2, 2008

File This One Under "Nero Fiddled -- While Rome Burned. . . ."


The President of IPhRMA, and a highly-placed member of PhRMA, one Schering CEO Fred Hassan, as quoted in Scrip ($; but do go read it all), yesterday:

. . . .Fred Hassan, CEO of Schering-Plough, holds little fear over the potential impact on the pharmaceutical industry of any healthcare reforms that might be sought by a liberal US Senate after president-elect Barack Obama enters office on January 20th, 2009. . . .

Right. Roger that. I would submit for the consideration of our gentle readers, here that Mr. Hassan did say -- in July of 2007 -- ENHANCE would turn out to be a "small, non-important" study -- a study applicable to only a subgroup of specialized high-cholesterol patients. Uh-huh. Okay. Check.

Consider the motivation of the speaker here, that is all I ask. And, by the by, is this the sort of leadership the international pharma trade group was expecting -- when it re-elected Mr. Hassan to a second term as president? I truly wonder. [And what if Mr. Obama receives the nod, for his second term, Mr. Hassan? By then, the recession will be in the world's rear-view mirror, we'll be out of Iraq, and health care will be front and center, yet again -- if it hasn't been, from 2008 to 2012, already.]

Namasté.

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