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Sebelius on Vaccines

24 Nov 2009

Discussing whether a new $487M investment from the government will help speed up the production of the most important vaccines, with Kathy Sebelius, Health & Human Services secretary and CNBC's Mike Huckman.

The New Formula for Faster Vaccines

24 Nov 2009

Novartis is opening on Tuesday the country's first plant to produce flu vaccines using cell cultures. These vaccines are faster, better and cheaper to make than egg-based methods, reports CNBC's Mike Huckman.

Novartis Opens 1st US Plant for Flu Vaccine

24 Nov 2009

Cholesterol Drug Battle: Niaspan vs. Zetia 16 Nov 2009
Abbott Laboratories' Niaspan beat Merck's Zetia in a new study. CNBC's Mike Huckman has the details.

Cardiologist Grades Cholesterol Drug Study

16 Nov 2009

Abbott Laboratories' Niaspan beat Merck's Zetia in a new study. Dr. Steven Nissen, chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at The Cleveland Clinic, shares his reaction with CNBC's Mike Huckman.

Merck's Cholesterol Drugs Under Pressure

16 Nov 2009

A new study is putting Merck's cholesterol drugs under pressure today, reports CNBC's Mike Huckman, with Ken Frazier, Merck Global Human Health president.

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CNBC ON DIGG

Pee Is For Pharma, Pfizer & Profits

Published: Monday, 10 Aug 2009 | 3:02 PM ET

Text Size

By: Mike Huckman
Reporter

Pharma Stocks
CNBC.com
Pharma Stocks

Critics have been saying for years that big pharma's been pi..., er, throwing away money on relatively unproductive research and development of new drugs.

But a new study shows urine could eventually provide a new revenue stream.

The findings of the clinical trial, which Pfizer helped pay for, are being published in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

Researchers had 99 men between 18 and 64 years old pee in a cup.

Why 99? I have no idea.

All I can think of is the number of bottles of beer on the wall.

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Anyway, the test subjects took acetaminophen, aka Johnson & Johnson's Tylenol.

And the clinical trial investigators had the men pee in a cup before they took the painkiller and for six hours afterwards.

They found a compound that comes from bacteria in the gut that presumably is a barometer of how each man metabolizes the Tylenol.

It gets rather complicated, but the researchers think the results could have future implications for figuring out who might respond to which drug.

The press release quotes a Pfizer VP of Research, Dr. Jeremy Everett, who says, "Although this is the first study of its kind and much further research is needed, this finding shows that in the future, researchers may need to consider human metabolic profiles as well as genetic profiles when choosing targets for drug discovery programs and when selecting patients for future clinical trials."

Imagine the liquidity this could provide for companies like Quest Diagnostics, Lab Corp of America and Bio-Reference Labs if the practice were ever widely adopted.

So, what's this promising field of research called? Well, you might say it's the "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" of science. It's called, "Pharmacometabonomics." Great. Good luck with that.

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