| West Africa offers supplement potential for Optihealth
Optihealth said today it has teamed up with the Nigerian based firm Thompson and Grace Pharmaceuticals in a distribution deal for the whole range of its products. The agreement will mean Optihealth can take advantage of the growing market for supplements in the countries, which is estimated to grow at some six percent a year. The 15 countries included in the deal are members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). This makes up some 5 million square kilometres. They are: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. Jorge Romero, President of Optihealth, said: "West Africa is sometimes overlooked but the consumption of dietary supplements grows at a very rapid pace. The demand for high-quality, science based supplements is just impressive."MarketRomero said the total market for supplements in Africa is $490m and West Africa represents some 40 per cent of that, at $196m.
Profound' changes to Quebec health care proposed
A task force has proposed "profound" changes to Quebec's health care system, including a greater role for the private sector and a bigger contribution from taxpayers. Among the working group's more radical proposals is that doctors be allowed under certain restrictions to practise in both the public and private systems and that private insurance companies be authorized to insure services currently covered under the public health program. The government should also allow private firms to manage hospitals by testing their efficiency through pilot projects that could eventually lead to "productive new options" according to the report. The head of the task force, former Liberal minister and insurance company executive Claude Castonguay, said people are demanding changes to an "incoherent and rigid" system and should be given the freedom to choose the kind of health care services they want.
Decline in generic drugs draws EU scrutiny and raids
Antitrust regulators have raided big European drugmakers as part of an investigation into whether patents and lawsuit settlements are being manipulated to keep generic products off the market. Inspectors from the European Commission seized information about intellectual property rights, litigation and settlements in patent disputes in a series of surprise visits to pharmaceutical companies on Wednesday. The commission would not identify the companies involved, but Glaxo, AstraZeneca, Wyeth, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Sanofi-Aventis and Pfizer said later that they had been contacted. In a statement the commission, the administrative arm of the European Union, said the investigation was in response to indications that competition in the European market "may not be working well." "Fewer new pharmaceuticals are being brought to the market, and the entry of generic pharmaceuticals sometimes seems to be delayed," the statement added.
One Woman's World
I placed ads, took students, started writing again. A couple of years after my decision to stop taking the pills, I spotted Prozac Backlash,, a book by Dr. Joseph Glenmullen. Having put my personal anti-depressant nightmare behind me, I had resumed my motivational work with women and was appalled at the growing number of women who were being handed powerful and debilitating anti-depressants as though they are a kissing cousin to a baby aspirin. I took Dr. Glenmullen's book home, sat down with a cup of coffee, began to read and was totally unprepared for my response. I wept with recognition. I rejoiced to know my term in anti-depressant hell had not been blundering incompetence or the imaginings of a poetic mind. I underlined the glaring side effects that had been part of my grey, blunted existence for so many months.
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