From the Editor

Risk management, and its benefits for patients, plays a big role at the PDA Annual Meeting.

The good, the bad, and the ugly about direct-to-consumer advertising.

On 7–9 May I attended ERBI's Biopartnering Exchange in Cambridge (UK), an event that brought together national and international entrepreneurs, senior executives and industry experts of the biotechnology sector.

Scientists are giving up on a preventive vaccine for AIDS, but there are lessons to be learned.

One of the headlines before going to print was 'Pfizer earnings suffer as patent expiries cause damage'. This US pharma giant has reported a net income decline of 18% for the first quarter, despite the positive impact of the favourable currency rates.

The FDA itself issues a cry for help. Is anybody listening?

It is the end of an era. Building on more than 6 years of dedication and hard work, Gurminder Marwaha has left Pharmaceutical Technology Europe (PTE) in search of new challenges. As his successor, I would like to join all the members of the editorial team in wishing him every success.

Can an overload of patent applications lead to the US' demise as a scientific leader?

A possible recession in the US and a global credit crunch are going to be major factors in the amount of money available as shareholders tighten their purse-strings.

Fixing FDA lies in the hands of the government, but is the president-to-be paying attention?

As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words, and I hope the features in this month's magazine provide you with examples of how others in the industry are playing their role in a greener future.

Drug makers, drug inspectors, and drug consumers need to demand that new drugs be effective.

And so another year has passed; it seems that once you've reached the age of 30, your life accelerates at a very unnerving pace. Marriage, houses, kids ... they hit you all of a sudden and before you know it, you're reminiscing about your days at university - which of course, are now just a distant memory.

As the mother of a 15-month-old, I was quite shaken last month to hear about over-the-counter cold medicines for children under age 2 being pulled off the shelves. Glued to the news, I wondered if the decongestant I had given my daughter when she was sick would have any negative impact on her long-term health.

Thanks to the media, Nobel Laureates are underrated, undervalued, and simply uncool.

Some people claim the statins are so effective and that their cholesterol has dropped to a point where they can "supersize" their burger and chips every time they visit a fast food outlet

Courts are denying the terminally ill access to experimental drugs, leaving many with no options.

In an age of "pre-existing conditions," can a new bill help patients get the treatment they need?

When it comes to research, the United States scientific community is still way ahead of the game, but we're not sharing our findings as often as we should. According to a new National Science Foundation (NSF) report, the number of science and engineering articles by US-based authors published in major peer-reviewed journals has plateaued.

By vetoing stem cell research funding, the President is vetoing potentially life-saving treatments.

Did you know that only one-third of prescribed pediatric drugs have been studied or labeled for pediatric use? The Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act (BPCA) was enacted in 2002 to improve this statistic by providing companies with six months of additional marketing exclusivity if they conduct pediatric trials. The Government Accountability Office recently issued a report that examined data from studies conducted between 2002 and 2005 for drugs specified by the US Food and Drug Administration under BPCA.

Thirty years ago, the world was a very different place; so was the pharma industry.

Global corporate citizenship can go a long way.

Perhaps Congress can help FDA meet its multiple oversight demands.

USP exercises a vigorous standards-setting process that draws on both public comments and meticulous scientific review.

Before we can intelligently set the limits of process variation, we need to know what the clinical impact of that variation will be.

We, the people who make drugs, are extraordinarily good at what we do.

When it comes to ethics, the adage "hindsight is 20/20" is especially applicable. Countless medical and psychological experiments-such as the 1932 Tuskegee syphilis study or Zimbardo's 1972 Stanford mock-prison experiment-were conducted in the name of science and are now plainly recognized as enormous violations of ethical and human rights.

The closing presentation was perfectly pitched to bring a lump to our throats and have us cheering for fast-track drug development. I and 30 other journalists had spent the day touring a Big Pharma plant, and now sat shoulder to shoulder in a warm conference room, awaiting the final speaker.

Ninety million people live in California, Texas, New York, and Florida. Imagine that, sometime tonight, an unnameable catastrophe carries off everyone in those states over the age of 14. When the sun comes up tomorrow, only the children remain. Eighteen million children, left to care for one another or fend for themselves.