Chemistry World Blog

European pharmaceutical companies still lead their US-rivals when it comes to making medicines available to people in developing countries, but according to the second Access to Medicine (ATM) Index the gap is shrinking.

UK-based GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) tops the pile in improving access to needed medicines, followed by Merck & Co., Novartis, Gilead and Sanofi-Aventis.

— Index_2010_ranking_graph

The 2010 index showed six of the ten highest ranking companies were based in Europe, while in the 2008 index seven European companies featured in the top ten.

‘Pioneering new ways to increase the access and affordability of our medicines and vaccines is the defining issue for our industry, especially for those least able to pay,’ a spokesperson for GSK told Chemistry World.

‘We are delighted that our approach has been recognised by the ATM index and will ensure that we continue to seek new and innovative ways to meet the expectations of patients across poorer, middle-income and developed countries.’ (more…)

— Rh

In this week’s Chemistry in its element podcast, Lars Öhrström reveals why rhodium is associated with catalysts, Paul McCartney and minty fresh breath

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— BUDGET-George-Osborne-180

George Osborne’s first budget as the UK’s chancellor of the exchequer has left scientists waiting to find out whether their funding will be slashed.

The ‘emergency budget’ from the UK’s new coalition government was designed to reduce the country’s staggering deficit through a combination of tax increases and deep cuts to the public sector – although the budget for the National Health Service (NHS) has been spared.

Alongside a number of painful tax increases (such as VAT rising to 20 per cent), and cuts to benefits (such as housing allowance) the stand out announcement for business was the reduction in corporation tax from 28 per cent to 24 per cent. The reduction, which will be phased in over the next 4 years, will try to keep companies in the UK and attract more of them to locate themselves here – a move Osborne believes will bring more jobs to these shores and stop others following Ineos’s lead in moving its headquarters to Switzerland.

The Universities and College Union (UCU) has criticised the budget saying it makes a ‘mockery of the coalition government’s claims that “we are all in this together”‘.

‘Starving education of funds and making families pay more to access a university education, while authorising billions in tax giveaways to big business would be a disaster for the UK. Today’s corporation tax cut could have funded university places for all students forced to cough up for university fees,’ said UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt.

Osborne also announced a consultation on the on R&D tax credit scheme and the Dyson review of how to turn the UK into the high tech export leader in Europe. While the ‘low carbon economy’ was mentioned several times, no definite plans on how this was to be achieved were detailed, nor was any mention made of any investment in the science and technology needed to achieve emissions reduction.

The lack of any specific mention of university and science budgets was perhaps not surprising,  but personally I was a little disappointed to find the words science and universities only mentioned  in the ‘list of abbreviations’.

‘Today wasn’t about setting the science budget – we will have to wait until the comprehensive spending review in the autumn to see if the government has understood the necessity of investing in science and engineering to secure economic growth,’ said Imran Khan, director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering.

‘But the government has recognised the importance of the private sector to the recovery.’

However, the news that government departmental budgets will fall by nearly 25 per cent over the next 4 years will no doubt strike fear in the hearts of many academics. The department for business, innovation and skills which is responsible for both universities and research councils, had been expecting its budget to fall slightly in the coming year, but how the cuts announced in this latest budget will affect it remains to be seen…

Matt Wilkinson

— magic-power-coffee

Being asked back to someone else’s place ‘for a coffee’ after a night out is always an interesting venture. But if the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is to be believed, you might end up with a lot more than you bargained for if your new friend has stocked up on ‘Magic power’ coffee.

This wonder-product is a mixture of instant coffee with goji berries, ginseng and a chinese herb known as ‘horny goat weed‘ and is marketed as a performance enhancer in the bedroom department for both men and women. Apparently, it is ‘the only coffee that leads to romance’, although anyone who’s tasted coffee made with real beans rather than instant granules might argue with that assertion… (more…)

Once upon a time striking oil was seen as a good thing, but in BP’s case its Deepwater Horizon oil well in the Gulf of Mexico has brought it, and the US shoreline, nothing but pain – at least $20 billion (£13.5 billion) of it.

— mce_style=

Following a meeting with Barack Obama, president of the US, BP’s chief executive Tony Hayward has said the company will create a $20 billion claims fund over the next three and a half years to pay off damages associated with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that has seen thousands of barrels of oil a day gush into the ocean.

Somewhat worryingly for the company’s shareholders, the fund does not represent a cap on BP’s liabilities – however, investors’ nerves seemed to have been calmed as the share price has risen somewhat on the back of the announcement. (more…)

The Chemical Industries Association has called on the leaders of the EU to make clear that a 20 per cent target in emissions savings is the European goal, rather than the 30 per cent that has been voiced recently.

‘Whilst recognising the need for an EU policy against climate change, we must seek to avoid job losses in energy intensive industries,’ says Reinhard Reibsch of the European Mine, Chemical and Energy Workers Federation.

‘A further increase of the agreed 20 per cent target would create enormous risks for employment.’ (more…)

— Ds

In this week’s Chemistry in its element podcast, science writer Brian Clegg tells us about the mayfly of the chemical world: darmstadtium

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After the explosion and sinking of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil platform in April and subsequent blowout causing thousands of litres of oil to escape into the Gulf of Mexico, affecting wildlife and livelihoods alike, officials are starting to look for someone to blame.

As mentioned by the BBC experts estimate that as much as 40,000 barrels (1.7 million gallons) of oil a day could have been escaping from the damaged well. The disaster and subsequent blame game have taken their toll on BP with a 44 per cent fall in shares since the start of the incident, resulting in a market value lower than the value of its assets.

Now the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has been asked by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce to investigate the disaster.

In response to this invitation, CSB chairman John Bresland said, ‘It is my desire that the CSB do everything it can to facilitate the request and to undertake the investigation and determine what factors led to the explosion and failure of the blowout prevention system.’

The CSB seems to be the ideal candidate for this as they investigated the BP Texas City refinery explosion of 2005 which killed 15 people. Following the investigation, BP convened a special panel to evaluate the safety culture at BP’s North American refineries. In 2007 BP agreed to pay $50 million (£34.4 million) in compensation for the explosion at the refinery as highlighted by Chemistry World here.

Bresland highlighted that the CSB, a small agency, is currently very busy, but he did acknowledge that the CSB ‘would be in a unique position to address numerous questions about BP’s safety culture and practices’. (more…)