US shutdown has little impact on FDA

We ended last week by stating that it was a good week for oncology. What we didn’t know was that it was about to get even better with the announcement on Saturday that an extra £400 million has been pledged to the UK’s Cancer Drugs Fund, which pays for seriously-ill patients to get life-saving drugs not usually available on the NHS. This is great news for patients but also for the pharma companies who will benefit from the increased focus on new drugs which are in the pipeline.

Generics could boost South African coffers

Elsewhere, the benefits of generics have been touted as way for South Africa to save money. A switch of 5% of the volume of branded medicines to a generic equivalent could save the country’s health care industry and patients in excess of 400 million rand ($39.7 million) per year, according to the South Africa’s National Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing (NAPM). However, it said a perception of the generic drugs as “cheap” could be holding back the market.