Roche urged to share info with Dutch corona test labs: FTM

DutchNews, March 26, 2020

Photo: Depositphotos.com

Swiss pharmaceuticals company Roche is unable to meet demand for coronavirus testing kits but is unwilling to share key information with labs to help them carry out mass testing, Dutch investigative website FollowThe Money said on Thursday. 

Most Dutch testing labs work with Roche equipment and depend on the Swiss firm for supplies. And due to special deals known as a ‘vendor lock-in’ they are not able to turn to alternative sources to stock up on essential items, FTM says. 

The Volkskrant reported earlier that most Dutch labs use Roche testing equipment and that the shortage of lysis buffer – a liquid used to break open cells – is one reason why the Netherlands is not carrying out mass testing. 

According to broadcaster NOS, Roche has 80% of the Dutch market. 

Commitment 

Roche told DutchNews.nl is a statement that it is committed to delivering as many tests as possible to areas where they can be most effective. However, to safeguard supply, the company said it strongly advised focusing testing on patients with symptoms, not with broad testing. 

‘Today, media in the Netherlands reported that Roche Netherlands is not providing enough test material to laboratories and asked Roche to publish the recipe for one reagent, called lysis buffer solution. We clearly state that this story is wrong,’ Roche said. 

‘There is no patent protection on lysis buffer itself. Roche will not guarantee safety and reliability of the quality and test results if the reagents required for the test are manufactured outside our own production network as well as those qualified production sites we are already working with. Safety and reliability of our components have been approved by regulatory authorities.’ 

Talks 

Meanwhile, health minister Hugo de Jonge has told parliament he is in talks with Roche about the recipe for making the liquid so that Dutch pharmacies can make it themselves and expand testing in the Netherlands. 

‘Talks are underway. We are doing all we can to get the formula,’ he said. 

The government has appointed Feike Sijbesma, the former chief executive of DSM, as its corona test expert. Sijbesma will focus on assessing and the availability of tests on the market and those being developed.

Minister to ‘talk to Novartis’ after five-fold cancer drug price hike

DutchNews, January 10, 2019 - By Robin Pascoe

Photo: Depositphotos.com

Health minister Bruno Bruins is planning to talk to Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Novartis this week about the five-fold hike in the price of a drug to treat a rare form of cancer. 

Bruins told a television talk show on Wednesday evening that the decision to put up the price of a year’s supply to €90,000 is an ‘example of how not to behave’. ‘These are outrageous sums,’ Bruins said. ‘And I am not done with this yet.’ 

The drug, lutetium-octreotaat, was developed in the mid 1980s by researchers at Rotterdam’s Erasmus Medical Centre but the company which makes it is now owned by Novartis following a string of takeovers. 

Novartis then registered the drug as an orphan treatment with the European patent office, according to research by Dutch medical journal Nederlands Tijdschrift voorGeneeskunde. 

Bruins told the Jinek talk show that the EU rules on orphan drugs are meant to stimulate the development of new medicines and says he plans to raise this abuse of the system within Europe. 

‘This expensive medicine is covered in the basic health insurance package so patients will continue to be treated,’ he said. ‘But we are having to deal with so many other really expensive drugs that we really do have to tackle this.’ 

Several Dutch hospitals make their own version of lutetium-octreotaat at a cost of some €4,000 per drip. A full treatment session comprises four drips. Apple chief Steve Jobs was among the patients who were treated using the medicine in Rotterdam. 

Meeting

A spokeswoman for Novartis told DutchNews.nl that the company is ‘willing to discusses this topic with all stakeholders including the government’. 

The company said the until its approval by the European Medicines Agency, the drug, formally known as Lutathera, ‘was only available as an experimental treatment at centers with the facilities and capabilities to manage the compounding of a radioactive product.’ 

The drug has now undergone major clinical trials and is available as a targeted therapy to patients in Europe and the US, Novartis said. 

After its approval in 2018, ‘the price of Lutathera was carefully considered and based on the relative benefit it provides to patients’, the company said. 

Price

Last year, the Dutch healthcare institute Zorginstituut Nederland said insurers should stop paying for expensive drugs if pharmaceutical companies continue to refuse to say how they arrive at the price.

And in November, Amsterdam’s AMC teaching hospital was given the green light by health ministry inspectors to make its own version of a licenced drug to treat a rare metabolic disorder. 

The hospital began making its own version of the drug after manufacturer Leadiant ramped up the price by around 500% to €200,000 per patient per year. 

The drug has been available since the 1970s but Leadiant only registered it as an orphan medicine with the European medicines agency in 2017. 

Orphan status, given to drugs which are used to treat very specific and rare illnesses, means a drug cannot be copied commercially for a 10-year period.

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EU judges offer no 'break' to Kit Kat trademark war

Yahoo – AFP, 25 July 2018

The European Court of Justice ordered the EU's intellectual property office to
consider its trademark recognition of Nestle's iconic Kit Kat chocolate bar

The European Union's top court on Wednesday ordered the EU's intellectual property office to "reconsider" Kit Kat's bloc-wide trademark, prolonging Nestle's decade-long battle to claim exclusive rights over the chocolate bar's distinctive shape.

Nestle has been locked in a blockbuster legal war with US rival Mondelez, maker of Cadbury chocolate, over the four-fingered wafer biscuit which was first sold in 1935.

In a closely watched case, the European Court of Justice said the EU's intellectual property office must go back to the drawing board and revisit its 2006 to decision to grant Kit Kat an EU trade mark based on its shape.

But in a break for Nestle, the Luxembourg-based ECJ did not cancel the trade mark outright, as suggested by the court's top advisor in April, with the EU intellectual property office now tasked to re-visit the basis for awarding the trademark.

"Today no one has won, no one has lost. Nestle has saved time because its brand remains registered for the time being," a court source told AFP.

"But Nestle did lose a battle as it would have preferred a full confirmation of the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) decision," the source added.

The EU's intellectual property office allowed Nestle in 2006 to trademark what the court calls the "three-dimensional shape of the 'Kit Kat 4 fingers' product".

This trademark has helped keep copycat candy-bars out of grocery stores, and punished the development of similar treats owned by Mondelez, including the Norwegian favourite Kvikk Lunsj, a Kit Kat doppelganger.

The EU's intellectual property office "must reconsider whether the three-dimensional shape of a '4 Finger KitKat' can be retained as an EU trade mark," a court statement said.

At issue is that the food giant specifically failed to provide evidence that the Kit Kat shape was well enough known in Belgium, Ireland, Greece and Portugal.

A lower EU court "was right to annul the EU's intellectual property office decision, in which it concluded that distinctive character had been acquired" without including those countries in the case, a statement said.

The trade mark criteria "must be shown throughout the EU," it said.

Nestle has already lost a legal bid in Britain -- currently an EU member state but set to leave next year -- to trademark the Kit Kat shape.

"Today?s judgment is not final," a Nestle spokesperson said in an email.

"We think the evidence proves that the familiar shape of our iconic four finger KitKat is distinctive enough to be registered as an EU Trademark," Nestle added.

The European Court of Justice ordered the EU's intellectual property office to consider its trademark recognition of Nestle's iconic Kit Kat chocolate bar

104-yr-old Australian commits assisted suicide in Switzerland

Yahoo – AFP, Gilles CAMPION, 10 May 2018

Goodall said he resented having to go abroad for suicide assistance

A 104-year-old Australian scientist who travelled to Switzerland to end his life committed assisted suicide on Thursday, a Swiss foundation said.

David Goodall, who had been barred from seeking help to end his life in his home country, did not have a terminal illness but said his quality of life had deteriorated significantly and that he wanted to die.

Goodall "died peacefully" in Basel, tweeted Philip Nitschke, founder of Exit International, the organisation which helped Goodall make the journey from Australia.

The death occured at 1030 GMT from an infusion of Nembutal, a barbiturate, at the Life Cycle clinic, he said.

The honorary research associate at Perth's Edith Cowan University set off from Australia a week ago, and stopped in Bordeaux, France to see family before arriving in Basel on Monday.

"I no longer want to continue life," Goodall told journalists on Wednesday.

"I am happy to have the chance tomorrow to end it, and I appreciate the help of the medical profession here in making that possible," he said.

The 104-year-old said he hoped the widespread interest in his case would spur Australia and other countries to rethink their legislation.

"I would have preferred to have (ended) it in Australia, and I greatly regret that Australia is behind Switzerland" when it comes to right-to-die laws, he said.

Goodall secured a fast-track appointment with the foundation in Basel after he attempted but failed to commit suicide on his own earlier this year.

"It would have been much more convenient for everyone if I had been able to, but unfortunately it failed," he said of the suicide attempt.

But he said he was happy that he had been offered the "Swiss option", since he has been able to see most of his large family, which is spread over several countries, in the run up to his final day.

Assisted suicide is illegal in most countries and was banned in Australia until the state of Victoria became the first to legalise the practice last year.

But that legislation, which takes effect in June 2019, only applies to terminally ill patients of sound mind and a life expectancy of less than six months.

According to Swiss law meanwhile, anyone who is of sound mind and who has over a period of time voiced a consistent wish to end their life can request so-called assisted voluntary death, or AVD.

Asked on Wednesday if he had any hesitations or doubts, the 104-year-old said: "No. None whatsoever."

In assisted dying, the person must be physically capable of carrying out the final deed on their own.

In Goodall's case that meant he had himself to open the valve that allowed the short-acting barbiturate to mix with a saline solution and flow into his vein.

Goodall said he resented having to go abroad for suicide assistance.

Australia scientist, 104, heads to Switzerland for assisted dying

Yahoo – AFP, April 30, 2018

Exit International is helping David Goodall make the trip (AFP Photo/Handout)

Australia's oldest scientist, who caused a stir when his university tried to vacate his office aged 102, will fly to Switzerland in early May to end his life, reigniting a national euthanasia debate.

David Goodall, who is now 104, does not have a terminal illness but his quality of life has deteriorated and he has secured a fast-track appointment with an assisted dying agency in Basel, euthanasia advocates said.

"I greatly regret having reached that age," the ecologist told broadcaster ABC on his birthday earlier this month. "I'm not happy. I want to die. It's not sad particularly. What is sad is if one is prevented.

"My feeling is that an old person like myself should have full citizenship rights including the right of assisted suicide," he added.

Assisted suicide is illegal in most countries around the world and was banned in Australia until the state of Victoria became the first to legalise the practice last year.

But that legislation, which takes effect from June 2019, only applies to terminally ill patients of sound mind and a life expectancy of less than six months.

Other states in Australia have debated euthanasia in the past, but the proposals have always been defeated, mostly recently in New South Wales state last year.

Exit International, which is helping Goodall make the trip, said it was unjust that one of Australia's "oldest and most prominent citizens should be forced to travel to the other side of the world to die with dignity".

"A peaceful, dignified death is the entitlement of all who want it. And a person should not be forced to leave home to achieve it," it said on its website Monday.

The group has launched a GoFundMe campaign to get plane tickets for Goodall and his helper upgraded to business class from economy and has so far raised more than Aus$17,000 (US$13,000).

Goodall, an honorary research associate at Perth's Edith Cowan University, made international headlines in 2016 when he was declared unfit to be on campus.

After an uproar and support from scientists globally, the decision was reversed.

He has produced dozens of research papers and until recently continued to review and edit for different ecology journals.

Australia's oldest scientist, David Goodall aged 104, will fly to Switzerland in early May to end his life, reigniting a national euthanasia debate
https://t.co/cZ1ayl4wd1

— AFP news agency (@AFP) April 30, 2018

Bugs on the menu at Swiss supermarket

Yahoo – AFP, August 14, 2017

Protein-rich mealworms make up the bulk of the "insect balls" due to go on
sale at Switzerland's Coop supermarket (AFP Photo/Dieter Nagl)

Geneva (AFP) - Switzerland's first insect-based food aimed at humans will go on sale next week following a revision of the country's food safety laws, a supermarket chain said Monday.

Switzerland's second-largest supermarket chain, Coop, announced it would begin selling an insect burger, and insect balls, based on protein-rich mealworm.

The products, made by a Swiss start-up called Essento, will be available in a handful of Coop branches, including in Geneva, Bern and Zurich, as of August 21, according to a statement.

Switzerland is the first European country to authorise the sale of insect-based food items for human consumption, a spokeswoman for the country's food safety authority told AFP.

Swiss food safety laws were changed last May to allow for the sale of food items containing three types of insects: crickets, grasshoppers and mealworms, which are the larval form of the mealworm beetle.

These insects, long used in animal feed, must be bred under strict supervision for four generations before they are considered appropriate for human consumption, according to Swiss law.

Local production will thus take a few months to get started.

In the meantime, imports are possible under strict conditions -- the insects must be raised in accordance with the Swiss requirements at a company submitted to inspections by national food safety authorities.

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NL has best healthcare system in Europe, Swedish consumer group says

DutchNews, January 31, 2017

The Dutch healthcare system was ranked the best in Europe for the seventh consecutive year, according to the annual index complied by Sweden’s Health Consumer Powerhouse. 

The index is based on 48 indicators, including accessibility, costs, results, patients rights and the use of pharmaceuticals. 

The Netherlands scores better every year and this year took 927 of the 1,000 points in the survey. Waiting lists have improved sharply but further improvement would boost the score, the organisation said. Second on the list, with 904 points, is Switzerland. 

Accessibility is a major advantage of the Dutch system, the researchers said. They also valued the relative lack of influence politicians and insurers have on decisions taken in the operating room. 

Nevertheless, the Netherlands also has one of the most expensive healthcare systems in Europe, averaging out at more than $5,000 per capita. The country also makes above average use of institutionalised mental health and geriatric care, the report said. 

The Netherlands’ lowest sub-index score is 11th in terms of price-quality. Macedonia, with the second lowest per capita healthcare cost, offers the best value for money, the Swedish report said. 

Read the report

France opens first safe injection space in Paris for drug addicts

France has joined several other European countries in allowing drug users to shoot intravenous drugs in sanitary conditions. Supporters have argued it reduces disease, while detractors say it 'trivializes' addiction.

Deutsche Welle, 11 Oct 2016

France announced on Tuesday that it will open its first supervised safe space for drug users in northern Paris. The decision comes after years of acrimonious opposition from conservative politicians.

The room, which opens on Friday, will give drug addicts clean needles as well as access to counseling and medical services as part of the Lariboisiere Hospital, near the city's busy Gare du Nord train station, where drug dealing and use is common.

Health Minister Marisol Touraine praised the safe-injection room as an "innovative and courageous response to a health emergency situation."

Touraine also emphasized the need to specifically reach out to marginalized populations. It will be "a very important moment in the fight against the scourge of addiction."

The center expects to welcome
between 100 to 200 addicts a day

First pioneered by Switzerland in 1986, France now joins countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Australia and Canada in granting addicts access to medically supervised injection spaces. There are plans to open similar rooms in Strasbourg and Bordeaux.

Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist mayor of Paris, told the press that she felt "very moved

and very proud because what's being done here is necessary, necessary for the people who are in complete disarray, because they know they have a door they can enter."

Opposition sees little benefit

For years, conservative lawmakers fought the creation of the safe injection site because they argued it trivialized drug use and could raise security concerns.

"The only acceptable policy remains helping people into ending drug usage," said conservative city council members in a joint statement.

There have also been sporadic protests in some Parisian neighborhoods against having such a facility in their backyard.

"No to an injection room in a
residential area" reads one banner

According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, safe-injection sites have been linked to reductions in disease-spreading behavior such as needle sharing, and an increase in addicts seeking counseling and rehabilitation services. In some cities, it has also been connected to a decrease in drug deaths and drug-related violence.

While overarching statistics as to the benefits of safe-injection sites can be difficult to compile, there is no evidence to suggest, as some French lawmakers have, that the existence of the safe rooms lead to an increase in drug use or violence.

es/jm (AP, AFP, Reuters)

Nestle USA strips artificial bits from chocolate candy

Yahoo – AFP, 18 Feb 2015

Nestle products including Butterfinger, Baby Ruth and Raisinets are seen on a
 table at Nestlé's 9-month sales press conference in New York on October 22, 2010
(AFP Photo/Stan Honda)

Washington (AFP) - No more artificial flavors and colors in Butterfinger, Babe Ruth or any Nestle chocolate candies in the United States, because Americans want them gone, the Swiss food giant said Tuesday.

Nestle USA pledged to remove artificial flavors and government-certified colors from all its more than 250 products by the end of the year.

"We're excited to be the first major US candy manufacturer to make this commitment," said Doreen Ida, president of Nestle USA Confections & Snacks.

The unit of the world's leading food company said its customer research on brands like Butterfinger showed US consumers prefer candy that is free of artificial flavors and colors.

The company also cited Nielsen's 2014 Global Health & Wellness Survey, which found more than an 60 percent of Americans said the absence of artificial colors or flavors was important to their food purchase decisions.

Nestle USA said it would replace the artificial flavors, and colors certified as safe by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), with ingredients from natural sources.

For example, annato from the seed of the fruit from the achiote tree will replace Red 40 and Yellow 5 in Butterfinger's crunchy center. Natural vanilla flavor will replace artificial vanillin in Crunch.

"We know that candy consumers are interested in broader food trends around fewer artificial ingredients. As we thought about what this means for our candy brands, our first step has been to remove artificial flavors and colors without affecting taste or increasing the price."

The revamped products will begin appearing on store shelves by mid-2015, labeled "No Artificial Flavors or Colors", the company said.

And all newly launched chocolate and non-chocolate candy products marketed by Nestle USA will be made without artificial flavors or colors, it pledged.

The company also said it is working on removing caramel coloring, used in nine of its chocolate products.

Caramel coloring, a common food coloring, is under scrutiny by consumer activists who say it may cause cancer.

According to the FDA website, the agency is reviewing data on a chemical compound in caramel coloring to make sure that its use in food remained safe.

Row over Marlboro-funded research that undermined plain cigarette packs

Tobacco giant Philip Morris insisted on seeing academics’ paper before it was published

The Guardian, Jamie Doward, Saturday 14 February 2015

Swiss anti-smoking campaigner Pascal Diethelm Photograph: Wikepedia

A bitter academic row has triggered calls for a leading university to withdraw two key scientific papers sponsored by “big tobacco” and used to make the case against the introduction of selling cigarettes in plain packets.

The papers, published by the University of Zurich, analysed the impact of plain packets in Australia. Their findings were widely disseminated in the media and used by the tobacco lobby to make the case that the health initiative had no discernible effect on smoking rates among the young in Australia, and therefore should not be introduced in the UK.

But now a group of academics has written to the university calling for the papers, funded and supervised by Philip Morris International (PMI), which makes Marlboro cigarettes, to be withdrawn.

In his letter to Dr Michael Hengartner, the university’s rector, Pascal Diethelm, president of OxyRomandie, a Swiss anti-smoking organisation, lists seven errors that he and his team say they have identified. “They are extremely serious,” Diethelm says. “Taken individually, most of them are sufficient to invalidate the findings of the papers. Collectively, they are damning.”

The two papers were written by Ashok Kaul and Michael Wolf, who have robustly defended their work, which was cited as key evidence by tobacco manufacturers in submissions to the Department of Health’s consultation on plain packaging.

On the back of their findings, PMI issued a press release stating: “The plain packaging experiment in Australia has not deterred young smokers, professors from the department of economics at Zurich University and the University of Saarland found in a report released today.”

However, Diethelm claims the errors go towards “reinforcing the conclusion of a lack of evidence, ie, they all play in favour of the commercial interest of the financial sponsor”.

The row has been taken up by others. A group of doctors recently declared on the BMJ website that “both of these papers are flawed in conception as well as design, but have none the less been widely publicised as cautionary tales”. Diethelm’s letter calls on the university to take the papers down from its website. “We ask the University of Zurich to retract them because they are erroneous beyond repair and because … they interfere with the public health policy of other countries… ”

In both papers, which were not peer-reviewed, Kaul and Wolf acknowledge that PMI provided funding. However, they do not reveal that the company demanded sight of the study before publication and the right to put forward suggestions.

Dr Nicholas Hopkinson, senior lecturer in respiratory medicine at Imperial College London – who criticised the papers on the BMJ website – described Zurich University’s collaboration with PMI as a “stain” on its reputation.

In a response to the criticisms, which they describe as “spurious” and “defamatory”,the two authors said: “As the authors of the working papers – committed to an open, free and objective scientific debate – we will not withdraw them from public scrutiny.”

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