I recently interviewed Michelle Alton, a senior pharma professional who is in the middle of a job search. The market is tough out there, she says, and networking is key.

Recent postings in the WSJ blog and elsewhere have asked the troubling question: Does Lean Manufacturing, by definition, lead to quality control problems? Click here for an interesting read. (For something that doesn't require registration, click here.)

Ever get stuck behind a loud bore on an airplane? I had that misfortune last week. Eventually tuned him out, but couldn’t help but pity his quiet seat-mate, who didn’t know a peptide from a Pepsi, as he got sucked deeper and deeper into a one-sided verbal black hole, a diatribe about the axis of evil: the pharmaceutical industry and its “ally,” the FDA.

This bore was well-read, but essential bits of knowledge were missing from everything he talked about, from his description of peptides and how cox-2 inhibitors work to his characterization of the evil FDA.

Did anyone miss President Obama's recent announcement that he plans to put an end to corporate tax loopholes (a mainstay for every major pharma and biotech company in the world....)More from Bloomberg and the President himself. 

Busy and eventful week.  Michele's on her way to Ireland to visit biotech and pharma labs, and Paul had nice interviews with AstraZeneca's CEO David Brennan and former House majority leader Dick Gephardt. 

I don’t know about you, but the relentless drum beat of negative news has been getting to me lately.  Every day seems to bring news of some drastic four-figure layoff...er, restructuring, whether in pharma or other industries.

The blockbuster model is dying a very slow and painful death and there will be more collateral damage before it's all over. Early morning brought news that Pfizer might buy Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, including its biologics division, for $60 billion. 

Will a short-term financial quick fix steamroll a vibrant company, with all the inevitable layoffs and culture issues that will result?

Before you can achieve a high level of operational excellence, you've got to nail down predictability, says Dr. Patrick Yang, Genentech's Executive VP for Products Operations. Too many companies aim high at the start of operational excellence initiatives, Yang says, at the expense of planned, predictable operations. Predictability is fundamental to operational excellence, Yang says, a prerequisite to all endeavors.

Are health costs too high? Yes! Are the pharmaceutical industry-types to blame? Not so much. The "cost" of health care that includes drugs is only a small fraction of what we spend. The far greatest cost, from knowing a number of doictors, is the "cost of doing business."

The reason we are losing OBY-GYNs in this country is that, no matter how much a pregnant mother smokes, drinks, uses drugs, and makes other unhealthy life choices, whan her child is born with any type of infirmity, there is a lawsuit against the doctor who delivered the baby. Insurance is so high, trauma  to the doctors' families so bad, most either opt out of the practice or forego entering it, in the first place.

In so many cases, when a patient dies during an operation, there are "ambulance-chasers" there to sue the anethesiologist. Insurance for anethesiologists was over $100,000 a year in 2000. Lord knows what it is up to now.

To avoid lawsuits or be given cover in the inevitable ones, doctors order many, many more tests than are warrented for all patients. The appearance that "we did all we could" needs to be maintained...for the inevitable court appearance.

Do doctors, nurses (underpaid and understaffed), and pharmacists make mistakes? Of course. Last time I looked they were still human. Part of the problem is that hospitals are overcrowded because the "Emergency Rooms" are the only place many millions of (uninsured) people can get any type of care. The result? Crowded hospitals, stretched personnel, pressure on facilities and equipment. The end result? And mistakes by harried health care personnel.

We don't seem to care that the massive American embassy in Iraq will cost $2+ billion a year to maintain or that the war has cost (directly) $400 Billion (so far... plus the rehab costs for Vets in the future and replacement of all the equipment left behind), why should we fight so hard not to spend a few hundred million to insure all Americans? If all people had access to yearly exams and preventative medical care, there would be fewer "emergencies." If we get dental check-ups and fillings, there would be fewer emergency extractions with resultant complications.

Remember the old commercial: "Pay me now or pay me later"? 

The "whipping boy" in the title is the pharmaceutical industry. They make a profit, so they are bad! Hey! Could we start with "Big Oil" who is, after all, merely "passing along costs" and scraping by with $40 billion/quarter profits? Whatever the faults of Big Pharma, they are still saving millions of lives. Or, have we forgotten Malaria, Small Pox, Polio, etc. already? 

I just got back from Amsterdam where Europe was having some of the nastiest weather in many years. The winds were gusting to (at least) gale force and, in some cases, such as the UK, approximately hurricane force. Heavy rain was coming at me horizontally. So, while sitting in my 16th floor hotel room on an artificial island behind the Amsterdam train station (also on a man-made island), I thought of Katrina and New Orleans. Would I have been so calm there?

No one was panicing and there was absolutely no question whether Northern Holland, even further under sea level than NO, might flood. I guess that when the national, regional, and local governments are not corrupt and do care about the people, good things tend to happen. There are no inspectors being paid under the table to certify that defective seawalls are ok. There was never a question of how the residents voted in the last election. And the Dutch army was all in-country, able to help with any disaster. Of course, it helps that the government officials live below sea level, too.

So, let's see: competent government, enough resources allocated, top-flight engineers with a working budget, and everyone "in the same boat" (in case of a flood) adds up to a "perfect non-storm." Maybe the "old-fashioned" Europeans do have some things to teach us, after all