Lilly (LLY) Alzheimer's Test Approved by FDA

A much-anticipated test developed by Eli Lilly, LLY , that detects the presence of proteins in the brain that are related to Alzheimer's disease was approved Friday by the Food and Drug Administration.

The tool could enable clinicians to detect Alzheimer's earlier and more accurately in patients at the earliest sign of memory problems—a potential boon to treatment and developing drugs against the disease.

The test uses a chemical called florbetapir, known by the brand name Amyvid, which is a radioactive agent that tags clumps of a sticky substance called an amyloid. Amyloid proteins are hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. The chemical, which costs $1,600 per dose, then is detected using a brain imaging technique called positron emission tomography, known as PET scans.
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McGraw Hill (MHP) 2012 Reveiw

McGraw Hill Co. (MHP) is a global information provider serving the financial, education and business markets via Standard & Poor’s, McGraw Hill Education, Business Week, Aviation Week and Platts.

MHP earns an amazing 35%+ return on equity and has grown profits and dividends 8-12% annually over the last 10 years. While the company experienced profit difficulties in 2009, it recovered in 2010 and continues to grow as a result of:

(1) rapid growth in digital sales,

(2) improvement in the domestic corporate new issue market as well as the credit market services division,

(3) management’s significant efforts to streamline operations and lower costs,

(4) an expanded stock buyback program.

Stocks and Economy News 119

China Slices 2012 Growth Target to Eight-Year Low

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao cut his nation's 2012 growth target to an eight-year low of 7.5 percent and made boosting consumer demand the year's first priority as Beijing looks to wean the economy off its reliance on external demand and foreign capital.
He lowered the target from a longstanding annual goal of 8 percent, a move investors anticipated so that Beijing has some economic leeway to rebalance the economy and defuse price pressures in the run up to a leadership change later this year.
Read more

All American Investor

Sonoco Products (SON) 2012 Review

Sonoco Products Co (SON) is a leading producer of paper-based tubes and cores, flexible packaging, rigid plastic containers, cylinder paperboard, composite cans, protective partitions, wire and cable reels and point of purchase displays.

The company has grown profits and dividends at a 5-6% pace over the last five years earning a 13-15% return on equity. The company should continue to grow as a result of:

(1) new product innovation. SON has raised the amount of capital spending dedicated to new product opportunities,

(2) increased focus of consumer oriented businesses,

@AllAmerInvest Qwikster Dead, China, Jobs Movie, Delta One, Poverty Stricken Muppet

China’s local governments dig deeper

So, China’s Golden Week was not as great for property sales as it usually is. Sales were down 32 per cent on the previous year in 20 major cities, Bloomberg tells us. Which has prompted a big fall for some property developers and financials, dragging down the Shanghai Composite and Hang Seng....
http://on.ft.com/nrdhzE

All American Investor

GOLDMAN SACHS: China's Golden Week Signals A Soft Landing
http://read.bi/q9EJhI

Netflix Backtracks − Abruptly Cancels Plan To Spin Off DVD Business
http://read.bi/oiRDq7

Apple Has 1,000 Engineers Working On Chips For The Post-PC Era
http://tcrn.ch/r9IRPf

Volcker’s ‘Delta one’ loophole
http://on.ft.com/puaSSp

@AllAmerInvest Depression, Facebook Secret, Danger, BA, Brazil, Greek Haircut

All American Investor

ROB ARNOTT: We're In The Worst Depression Since The Great Depression

Rob Arnott says we're in the worst depression since the Great Depression and the Fed may be making things worse.
http://read.bi/oj3lIj


How To Get Your New Facebook Profile In Just 5 Minutes
http://read.bi/rdvNr4

• From 1979-2005, the average real income of families in the "middle" rose 21%
• Over the same period, the average real income of the richest 100th of one percent rose 480%, from $4 million to $24 million.

http://read.bi/mXdHAV

Antipsychotics, Johnson and Johnson, Kickbacks to Nursing Homes, the Feds Step In

UNITED STATES FILES SUIT AGAINST DRUG MANUFACTURER JOHNSON & JOHNSON (JNJ) FOR PAYING KICKBACKS TO NATION’S LARGEST NURSING HOME PHARMACY

By Bob DeMarco

...for paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to Omnicare, Inc. (“Omnicare”), the nation’s largest pharmacy that specializes in dispensing drugs to nursing home patients.

U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said, “Kickbacks in the nursing home pharmacy context are particularly nefarious because they can result in excessive prescribing of strong drugs to patients who have little or no control over the medical care they are receiving. Nursing home doctors should be able to rely on the integrity of the recommendations they receive from pharmacists, and those recommendations should not be a product of money that a drug company is paying to the pharmacy.”

This lawsuit and story pertains to the enormous amount of antipsychotics that are being given to nursing home patients.

In this case, Risperdal, like many other psychotics, raises the risk of death in patients with psychosis that stems from dementia. Risperdal is not approved to treat this form of psychosis. Nevertheless, the drugs have been widely prescribed to nursing-home patients with dementia.

The Wall Street Journal broke this story back in 2007 -- Antipsychotic Drugs Abused as Chemical Restraints for Elderly. The article pointed out that "almost a third of patients in nursing homes were receiving powerful antipsychotic drugs". They were being given the drugs whether the patients were psychotic -- or not.

United States files suit against drug manufacturer Johnson and Johnson for paying Kickbacks to Nation's Largest Nursing Home Pharmacy

BOSTON, MA - United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and Tony West, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Division, announced today that the Government has filed a civil False Claims Act complaint against drug manufacturer Johnson & Johnson (J&J), of New Brunswick, New Jersey, and two of its subsidiaries, Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems, Inc., for paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to Omnicare, Inc. (“Omnicare”), the nation’s largest pharmacy that specializes in dispensing drugs to nursing home patients. In November 2009, the United States, numerous states, and Omnicare entered into a $98 million settlement agreement that, among other things, resolved Omnicare’s civil liability under the False Claims Act for taking kickbacks from J&J.

U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said, “Kickbacks in the nursing home pharmacy context are particularly nefarious because they can result in excessive prescribing of strong drugs to patients who have little or no control over the medical care they are receiving. Nursing home doctors should be able to rely on the integrity of the recommendations they receive from pharmacists, and those recommendations should not be a product of money that a drug company is paying to the pharmacy.”

“We will pursue those who break the law to take advantage of the elderly and the poor,” said Tony West, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the Department of Justice.“ Kickbacks such as those alleged here distort the judgments of health care professionals and put profits ahead of sound medical treatment.”

In its complaint against J&J, the United States alleges that J&J paid kickbacks to Omnicare to induce Omnicare to purchase and to recommend J&J drugs, including the antipsychotic drug Risperdal, for use in nursing homes. According to the complaint, J&J understood that Omnicare’s pharmacists reviewed nursing home patients’ charts at least monthly and made recommendations to physicians on what drugs should be prescribed for those patients. The Government further alleges that J&J knew that physicians accepted the Omnicare pharmacists’ recommendations more than 80 percent of the time, and that J&J viewed such pharmacists as an “extension of [J&J’s] sales force.”

The United States alleges that, in order to induce Omnicare and its pharmacists to recommend J&J drugs, J&J paid kickbacks to Omnicare in numerous ways. First, the complaint alleges that J&J entered into agreements with Omnicare pursuant to which Omnicare was entitled to increasing levels of rebates from J&J so long as Omnicare implemented specific “Active Intervention Programs” to drive prescribing of J&J drugs. Second, the complaint alleges that J&J paid Omnicare millions of dollars for “data,” much of which Omnicare never provided. According to the complaint, the true purpose of these payments was to induce Omnicare to recommend J&J drugs, and J&J used the disguise of a data purchase arrangement to evade its obligations to disclose the payments to the Government and to pay rebates to state Medicaid programs. Third, the complaint alleges that J&J made various other substantial kickback payments to Omnicare, calling the payments “grants” and “educational funding” even though their true purpose was to induce to Omnicare to recommend J&J drugs.

In response to J&J’s kickbacks, according to the complaint, Omnicare undertook various “intervention” programs for J&J drugs. For example, Omnicare engaged in a “Risperdal Initiative” whose purpose, as J&J understood it, was “to persuade physicians to write Risperdal in the areas of Behavioral Disturbances associated with Dementia.” After the conduct at issue, the United States Food and Drug Administration mandated that the label for Risperdal carry a“black box” warning that “Elderly Patients with dementia-related psychosis treated with atypical antipsychotic drugs [including Risperdal] are at an increased risk of death compared to placebo.” The United States filed its complaint in two consolidated whistleblower lawsuits presently on file in the District of Massachusetts.

This case was investigated by the Chicago, St. Louis, and Boston units of the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Chicago unit of the Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The case is being handled by Gregg Shapiro and Christine Wichers in Ortiz’s Civil Division and Laurie Oberembt in the Justice Department’s Civil Division.

CONTACT: CHRISTINA DiIORIO-STERLING
PHONE: (617)748-3356
E-MAIL: USAMA.MEDIA@USDOJ.GOV



Original content Bob DeMarco, the Alzheimer's Reading Room

Dendreon (DNDN) Hot Chart

Dendreon Corporation (DNDN). Did you own this stock? Well somebody did and it wasn't me. The stock has risen from the 4.25 area to the 22.50 area in the last 20 days.

Note: news due today at 2 PM eastern.

Dendreon Corporation (DNDN), a biotechnology company, engages in the discovery, development, and commercialization of therapeutics to enhance cancer treatment options for patients.

Dendreon applies its expertise in antigen identification, engineering and cell processing to produce Active Cellular Immunotherapy (ACI) product candidates designed to stimulate an immune response. ACI holds promise because it may provide patients with a meaningful clinical benefit, such as survival, combined with low toxicity. In addition to ACI product candidates, the company is researching small molecule product candidates.

Dendreon Newsroom

Dendreon Presents Preclinical Data Demonstrating Activity of TRPM8 agonist, D-3263, in Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia

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Bob DeMarco is a citizen journalist and twenty year Wall Street veteran. Bob has written more than 500 articles with more than 11,000 links to his work on the Internet. Content from All American Investor has been syndicated on Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Pluck, Blog Critics, and a growing list of newspaper websites. Bob is actively seeking syndication and writing assignments.

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