Biography for Eric Palmer
Eric Palmer is a business and technology journalist with more than three decades of prize-winning experience as a reporter and editor with daily, weekly, monthly and online publications. He was heatlhcare reporter for The Kansas City Star before becoming deputy business editor for the daily newspaper. He spent eight years as editor of The Kansas City Business Journal, which had a strong emphasis on the healthcare industry. On the personal side, he is an avid fly fisherman, cooks and collects wine, and likes to travel with his family.
Articles by Eric Palmer
J&J consumer healthcare faces more issues, this time in Brazil
Johnson & Johnson just can't seem to get its consumer health manufacturing in order.
Wockhardt acknowledges FDA ban, says it could cost $100M
Another of India's large generic drugmakers has found itself in serious problems with the FDA. Just a week after Ranbaxy Laboratories' $500 million settlement, Wockhardt says the FDA has issued an import alert that could cost it $100 million in lost sales.
Glaxo packs up a tablet packaging line in Australia
GlaxoSmithKline is pretty proud of its rotacaps and its blow-fill-seal lines at its packaging plant in the Melbourne, Australia, suburb of Boronia. Its tablet line, not so much, and the drugmaker will eliminate that line and lay off about a third of the workforce at the facility.
FDA cites Boehringer Ingelheim plant in Germany
Just months after signing a consent decree for the manufacturing mess in its Ben Venue subsidiary, Boehringer Ingelheim finds itself on the firing line with the FDA again, this time for particle contamination in an API produced 4 and 5 years ago.
Ranbaxy makes manufacturing strides, many dictated by consent decree
Ranbaxy Laboratories wants the world to know it is not the same company it was when it lied to the FDA and tried to hide serious manufacturing and drug quality problems that led to last week's felony convictions for the Indian drugmaker. Today it laid out many of the of the improvements it has made since the fraud, like adding independent members to its board of directors.
Malaysia's Pharmaniaga slates drug plant in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is drawing yet more interest from companies that see potential from manufacturing drugs there. The Indonesian company Pharmaniaga is teaming with Saudi Arabia-based Modern Healthcare Solutions to build a drug manufacturing plant.
Gorsky pleads with employees to think quality
Another Big Pharma CEO is having a pep talk with employees about manufacturing lapses and the need to reflect on quality.
Pfizer's effort to confront shortage leads to second Levoxyl recall
Pfizer began recalling its thyroid drug Levoxyl this year after getting complaints of odors from the bottles tied to a new formulation, a move that threatened to lead to a shortage of the drug. So its King Pharmaceuticals subsidiary returned to making the older formulation. But now it has to recall 84 lots of that product because there appears to be potency issues.
Novartis' Sandoz unit recalls products from U.S., Poland
Generic drugmaker Sandoz is recalling two lots of an injectable drug, making yet another manufacturing problem for its parent, Novartis.
Chinese drugmaker fights counterfeiting in Africa with SMS technology
China has often been maligned in Africa as the source of counterfeit drugs, a reputation that the government is not at all happy about. Chinese authorities this year even took the unusual step of defending their country against a report in a U.K. newspaper that it was a primary source of fake antimalarial drugs in Uganda and Tanzania.
