If a drug company wanted to create the ideal cholesterol-lowering medication, here's what it would make: a safe, inexpensive pill that lowered levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol and triglycerides, raised HDL (good) cholesterol, and changed the sizes of cholesterol particles to make them less harmful or more beneficial. Of the current cholesterol-lowering drugs on the market, niacin comes closest t...

Studies of drug treatments are more likely to report favourable outcomes when they are funded by the pharmaceutical industry. We compared drug trials reported in three major psychiatric journals to investigate these influences. Independent studies were more likely to report negative findings than industry-funded studies. However, the involvement of a drug company employee had a much greater eff...

INTRODUCTION Over the last few years, many private companies are advertising direct-to-consumer genetic testing (DTC GT), mostly with no or only minor clinical utility and validity of tests and without genetic counselling. International professional community does not approve provision of DTC GT and situation in some EU countries has been analysed already. The aim of our study was to analyse cu...

Antibiotic resistance tends to increase when a patent on an antibiotic expires. Since other companies can now sell the antibiotic, more of the antibiotic is produced and prices fall. Because the benefits of reducing current production go to other firms, pharmaceutical companies will have little concern about future resistance. This 'open-access' problem causes excessive antibiotic use and resis...

the company level has been dominated by what goes on inside companies. Thinking about the competitiveness of nations and states has focused on the economy as a whole, with national economic policy seen as the dominant influence. In both competition and competitiveness the role of location is all but absent. If anything, the tendency has been to see location as diminishing in importance. Globali...