Ben Hirschler: Reuters via Business Report

ASTRAZENECA is cutting a further 7 300 jobs and expects earnings to fall by between 14 percent and 18 percent this year as key drug patents expire and governments in the US and Europe squeeze prices. The latest phase of cuts, equivalent to 12 percent of the workforce, would deliver an extra $1.6 billion (R12.4bn) in annual benefits by the end of 2014, Britain’s second-biggest drug maker said. It would cost $2.1bn to implement.

Zeenat Moorad: BusinessLIVE

LOCAL and global growth of the generic pharmaceutical market is set to accelerate rapidly in 2012, building on the significant momentum the sector achieved last year, according to generic pharmaceutical company. Paul Anley, CEO of Pharma Dynamics, said it was anticipated that the generics industry would experience considerable growth this year, after the average 11percent growth seen locally in 2011.

SAPA

THE function of minor maintenance at Gauteng provincial hospitals will be transferred to hospital CEOs, according to the province's infrastructure and development department. Spokesman Philemon Motshwaedi said this meant that CEOs would be responsible for purchasing material as well as managing the whole maintenance exercise for minor work of less than R1 million.

Robert Langreth: Bloomberg via Business Day

PHARMACEUTICALS maker Eli Lilly said yesterday that fourth-quarter profit declined 27 percent on plummeting sales of its best-selling schizophrenia drug, as rival Pfizer said its net income fell 50 percent. Lilly said its net income fell to $858,2m from $1,17bn a year earlier. Profit excluding one-time items was 87c a share. Lilly is investing in research to overcome patent losses since October on Zyprexa and other drugs without making a major acquisition.

Thandi Skade: The Star

AT LEAST six National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) labs have been shut because of the service's cash crunch. The labs were closed because the service, the sole service provider contracted to deliver laboratory diagnostic tests; screening for chronic diseases, including HIV and cervical cancer; and services for all public healthcare facilities, is owed R2.1bn in outstanding service bills from provincial health departments.

Reuters

THE world's major pharmaceutical companies have joined forces with governments and leading global health organisations to donate drugs and scientific know-how to help control or wipe out 10 neglected tropical diseases by 2020.
Drugmakers have been criticised in the past for not doing enough to fight diseases of the poor as they concentrate instead on conditions more prevalent in rich nations, such as high cholesterol.

Thandi Skade: The Star

Overcrowding, a lack of resources, overworked and underpaid, and a lack of functional equipment.

These are among the reasons why professional nurses are turning their backs on the public healthcare system for more lucrative options in the private sector.

Thandi Skade: The Star

FIVE theatre nurses working for the SA National Defence Force have been drafted into Chris Hani-Baragwanath Academic Hospital to help with the growing backlog of elective surgeries in the maternity ward due to a shortage of staff. They arrived earlier this .month, and a source said they would probably stay until the end of March. The defence force personnel were sent after fed-up doctors at Bara wrote to Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi about an ever-increasing elective surgery backlog.

Londiwe Buthelezi

Major reforms in the South African health-care sector have sparked much debate among industry players and the public at large, and had some panicking about future prospects.

The gazetting of the National Health Insurance green paper has been by far the most complex topic as analysts and industry experts have called the policy controversial.

The Department of Health is fighting to bring equity to the country’s health-care system, and has revealed the lines of division between the public and private sectors.