Related Research Articles
The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs through the use of drug prohibition laws. The think tank Global Financial Integrity's Transnational Crime and the Developing World report estimates the size of the global illicit drug market between US$426 and US$652 billion in 2014 alone. With a world GDP of US$78 trillion in the same year, the illegal drug trade may be estimated as nearly 1% of total global trade. Consumption of illegal drugs is widespread globally, and it remains very difficult for local authorities to reduce the rates of drug consumption.
The Merck Group, branded and commonly known as Merck, is a German multinational science and technology company headquartered in Darmstadt, with about 60,000 employees and a presence in 66 countries. The group includes around 250 companies; the main company is Merck KGaA in Germany. The company is divided into three business lines: Healthcare, Life Sciences and Electronics. Merck was founded in 1668 and is the world's oldest operating chemical and pharmaceutical company, as well as one of the largest pharmaceutical companies globally.
F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, commonly known as Roche, is a Swiss multinational healthcare company that operates worldwide under two divisions: Pharmaceuticals and Diagnostics. Its holding company, Roche Holding AG, has shares listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange. The company headquarters are located in Basel. Roche is the fifth-largest pharmaceutical company in the world by revenue and the leading provider of cancer treatments globally.
Growth hormone therapy refers to the use of growth hormone (GH) as a prescription medication—it is one form of hormone therapy. Growth hormone is a peptide hormone secreted by the pituitary gland that stimulates growth and cell reproduction. In the past, growth hormone was extracted from human pituitary glands. Growth hormone is now produced by recombinant DNA technology and is prescribed for a variety of reasons. GH therapy has been a focus of social and ethical controversies for 50 years.
Controversies regarding the use of human growth hormone (HGH) as treatment method have centered on the claims, products, and businesses related to the use of growth hormone as an anti-aging therapy. Most of these controversies fall into two categories:
- Claims of exaggerated, misleading, or unfounded assertions that growth hormone treatment safely and effectively slows or reverses the effects of aging.
- The sale of products that fraudulently or misleadingly purport to be growth hormone or to increase the user's own secretion of natural human growth hormone to a beneficial degree.
Serono was a biotechnology company headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It was acquired by the German pharmaceutical company Merck in 2006. The company was founded as the Serono Pharmacological Institute by Cesare Serono in 1906 in Rome, Italy. A key step in its development was the discovery of a method of extracting urinary gonadotropins by Dr. Piero Donini. Serono was incorporated in 1987 and the holding company, Ares-Serono S.A., changed its name to Serono S.A. in May 2000.
Efalizumab is a formerly available medication designed to treat autoimmune diseases, originally marketed to treat psoriasis. As implied by the suffix -zumab, it is a recombinant humanized monoclonal antibody administered once weekly by subcutaneous injection. Efalizumab binds to the CD11a subunit of lymphocyte function-associated antigen 1 and acts as an immunosuppressant by inhibiting lymphocyte activation and cell migration out of blood vessels into tissues. Efalizumab was associated with fatal brain infections and was withdrawn from the market in 2009.
Menotropin is a hormonally active medication for the treatment of fertility disturbances. Frequently the plural is used as the medication is a mixture of gonadotropins. Menotropins are extracted from the urine of postmenopausal women.
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Office of Criminal Investigations (OCI) provides the FDA with a specific office to conduct and coordinate its criminal investigations.
Saizen is a commercial preparation of synthetic somatropin. Manufactured by Merck Serono, Saizen is produced by recombinant DNA technology from a mammalian cell line that was modified by the addition of the human GH gene, resulting in an identical 191-amino acid sequence and structure.
Genset, a biotechnology company, was established in 1989 in Paris, France with Pascal Brandys as its first president.
Merck Serono is a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany, and a brand and division of Merck focused on biopharmaceuticals.
A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the set of goods and services whose production and distribution is prohibited or restricted by law, non-compliance with the rule constitutes a black-market trade since the transaction itself is illegal. Parties engaging in the production or distribution of prohibited goods and services are members of the illegal economy. Examples include the legal drug trade, prostitution, legal currency transactions, and human trafficking. Violations of the tax code involving income tax evasion constitute membership in the unreported economy.
Somatrem, sold under the brand name Protropin, is an analogue of growth hormone (GH).
CancerVax was an American pharmaceutical company founded in 1998 by Donald Morton. The company sought to develop a vaccine for cancer, and had candidates for melanoma reach phase III clinical trials. When those trials proved unsuccessful in 2005, the company soon underwent a reverse takeover with Micromet.
A counterfeit medication or a counterfeit drug is a medication or pharmaceutical item which is produced and sold with the intent to deceptively represent its origin, authenticity, or effectiveness. A counterfeit drug may contain inappropriate quantities of active ingredients, or none, may be improperly processed within the body, may contain ingredients that are not on the label, or may be supplied with inaccurate or fake packaging and labeling. Counterfeit drugs are related to pharma fraud. Drug manufacturers and distributors are increasingly investing in countermeasures, such as traceability and authentication technologies, to try to minimise the impact of counterfeit drugs. Antibiotics with insufficient quantities of an active ingredient add to the problem of antibiotic resistance.
Somapacitan, sold under the brand name Sogroya, is a growth hormone medication. Somapacitan is a human growth hormone analog. Somapacitan-beco is produced in Escherichia coli by recombinant DNA technology.
References
- ↑ "Serostim® (somatropin) For Injection | Website For Patients". Serostim.
- ↑ "SERONO TO PAY $704 MILLION FOR THE ILLEGAL MARKETING OF AIDS DRUG". Department of Justice. 17 October 2005. Retrieved 23 June 2018.
