Yemen

Cipla has seen another high profile exit. This time it's the firm's global chief financial officer (CFO), evidently bitten by the entrepreneurial bug.

Will India's Cipla and Serum Institute progress their current alliance for vaccines into a potential combination?

With West Africa's hospitals and treatment centers overwhelmed and its health systems near collapse – leaving people to die in the streets – the Ebola outbreak has spotlighted not only the need to ensure global capacity and systems are in place to better prevent, detect and rapidly respond to biological threats before they become out-of-control epidemics, but to make sure those capabilities are enduring, leaders from 44 countries declared during a 26 September meeting at the White House.

Cipla has entered into an alliance with the privately owned US firm BioQuiddity to market the latter's drug infusion system for post-surgical pain management in Europe.

Cipla appears to be sewing up a string of smaller acquisitions aimed at securing its position in certain strategic markets as it transitions from its traditional partnerships-only approach to developing an international presence.

With the media run-up to President Barack Obama's 23 May counterterrorism speech focused on the use of drones – with the administration acknowledging in a 22 May congressional letter that four US citizens identified as terrorists had been killed in such US military strikes in Yemen and Pakistan – and whether the US will ever close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, the nation's preparedness against a biological attack may not get equal attention in his policy address at National Defense University in Washington.

Following the political and social upheaval of the Arab Spring, Hikma Pharmaceuticals is poised for expansion into markets that are now much more receptive than before. Said Darwazah, CEO of the Jordan-based speciality pharma group, told Scrip that while the political disruptions in the Middle East only cut a company-estimated $20 million from sales revenue in 2011, the situation has transformed some markets into an opportunity for accelerated growth.

Hikma Pharmaceuticals has entered into a licensing and distribution agreement to market Ferinject (ferric carboxymaltose), Vifor Pharma's intravenous iron deficiency treatment, in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region.

Stada has said that it is in exclusive talks with Grunenthal about purchasing Grunenthal's branded product portfolio and associated sales structures with up to 240 employees in central and eastern Europe and the Middle East for around €360 million.

Flagging investor confidence in the traditional pharmaceutical model in the years following its mega-merger convinced GlaxoSmithKline that it needed to execute drastic change. Brought into the corporate team to help make it happen, chief strategy officer David Redfern tells Elizabeth Sukkar how a more aggressive approach has refocused GSK on R&D metrics that deliver true value.

Researchers are calling for more use of generics, differential pricing by the R&D pharma industry and even compulsory licensing after a study looking at the prices of four medicines and the income levels of people living in 16 poor countries found a large portion of their populations (up to 86%) would be "impoverished" should they need to purchase one of the four treatments.

After years of warding off generics, large pharma companies are embracing generic drug manufacturers and vying for a share of the off-patent drugs business. Indian generic companies, once considered business pariahs, are the focus of plenty of action, Anju Ghangurde reports.