"Phake: The Deadly World of Falsified and Substandard Medicines" explores the underground trade in illegal medicines that kills over 100,000 people per year and supplants billions of dollars of real products.

Reviewing "The Myth of The Paperless Office" for the New Yorker in 2002, Malcolm Gladwell argued that if the computer had come first, and paper didn't exist, someone would have had to invent it.  Paper, it turns out, is a lot more useful than we typically appreciate.

The intriguing scientific question is how can bariatric surgery result in an almost immediate improvement in the insulin resistance profile of diabetic patients?

Perhaps it's the sweet California air, but the pervasive (though not universal) pessimism in biopharma these days is really bumming me out.  Consequently, I'd like to discuss three potential responses to difficult industry problems.

For all the public wrangling we are seeing over the super committee — mostly centered on tax reform and revenues as a key component of a compromise — the big issue facing policymakers in the coming years is health care costs.

3.8 percent of drugs sampled from countries with emerging economies failed basic quality control tests--and these drugs are used to treat potentially lethal infections. Africa has a greater problem with substandard products than any other location.

Failing to distinguish between licensed online pharmacies (Canadian or otherwise), which require a valid prescription and sell safe medications, and rogue online pharmacies, which sell lethal fake medicines or flout prescription requirements, means poor patients have less information to make good choices about the drugs they require.

A few quick impressions from last night’s FutureMed extravaganza put on by Singularity University at the Museum of Computer History, a stone’s throw from Google’s Mountain View headquarters.

The event featured an exhibition session where emerging digital health...