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Research and development initiatives done by pharmaceutical firms to compensate for the loss of patent protection for some profitable drugs are discussed. With product line diversification, drug development, and downsizing, the industry is expected to post an at least 4 percent sales growth to $840 billion in 2010. The industry's focus toward preventive health care is also described.

How changes in Ireland's pharmaceutical industry affected the chemical manufacturing sector is discussed. These changes are brought about by the economic slowdown that has led Ireland's leading industry to reassess their respective operations.

Scientific equipment vendors have offered various types of Internet-enabled laboratory information management system (LIMS) to help small laboratories gain access to automated data. This can be achieved by supplying LIMS software as a service (SAAS) through cloud computing. LIMS-equipped small laboratories are also expected to realize affordable workflow management by using SAAS.

Big pharmaceutical companies are clearly focusing on Cambridge, Massachusetts in what others say is a testimony to the trend in the industry to break up into smaller units while others say this highlights the strides that academic researchers have made in embracing corporate ways.

Pharmaceutical firms are forming partnerships to seek evasive cures, as seen in GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Pfizer Inc.'s ViiV venture on HIV/AIDS drugs. Wyeth has also formed a research venture with Janssen Alzheimer Immunotherapy Research & Development on Alzheimer's disease therapy. Details on other partnerships are presented.

The chemical industry is expected to see improvements in free cash flow and credit quality in 2010, but related construction is expected to continue to struggle. Chemical industry forecasts on the inorganics, fine chemicals and specialty chemicals market, crop protection, pharmaceuticals, and laboratory instrumentation are discussed.

Portugal's Hovione was founded by Ivan Villax and his son Guy Villax became CEO in 1998. The pharmaceutical chemical company acquired a plant from Pfizer in Cork, Ireland which will allow them to take on business with major drug companies. CEO Guy Villax discusses the company's history as they mark 50 years in business.

Big pharmaceutical companies that include Pfizer, Eli Lilly & Co, and Genentech are among the first to evaluate the pros and cons of using cloud computing. The technology allows drug companies to store large amounts of data and provides lower costs and faster data processing.

The Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, an organization created by Doctors Without Borders, is mobilizing public-private partnerships for the treatment of neglected diseases for people in poor countries. The initiative aims to develop low-cost drugs for these diseases.

Big pharmaceutical companies are taking new approaches to research and development, manufacturing, and acquisitions to make them faster, more agile and efficient. The transformation of this industry is being driven by the threat of patent expirations of blockbuster drugs.

US biopharmaceutical companies are scaling back research efforts to reduce costs and survive the economic downturn. Total biotechnology financing fell to $30.126 billion in 2008 from $44.34 billion in the previous year.

The use of laboratory information management software in life sciences research is helping research institutes manage research projects more effectively. This class of software helps enforce standard laboratory practices by collecting samples and data.

Pharmaceutical companies believe that a recession would result in greater pressure to maintain profits and continue drug development. Outsourcing chemical manufacturing processes have become a more critical part of the business of big pharmaceutical companies.

Fine chemical manufacturers have reported a growth in business over the past three years following a slowdown for almost five years. The growing business is attributed to the demand from biotech drug companies and pharmaceutical companies.

The Chief Executive Officer of Pfizer, Jeffrey B. Kindler has unveiled his strategy to help the company offset the financial losses due to the delay in granting patent protection to its drug Lipitor.

Information technology companies like Microsoft, Google and Dell are developing desktop research tools that will help pharmaceutical companies for collaborative research in healthcare.

The strategy that specialty chemical companies are adopting to prevent specialty chemicals being classified as commodities in the market is discussed.

The research and development that pharmaceutical companies are involved in to develop drugs suited to individual needs is discussed.

The Asian low-cost competition is becoming tougher for contract research organizations (CROs) of Russia and the U.S. to extend their drug discovery pipeline.

The article discusses about the collaboration of drug firms to formulate an information management infrastructure to bridge discovery and development efforts.

Pharmaceutical industries are investing in new process technologies for customers as well as in view of competition.

ChemSpec Europe, the annual specialty chemicals exhibition, showed a revitalized contract manufacturing sector and a growing role for private capital. There is lot of private equity money flowing into the contract manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients.

The initiatives and reengineering efforts by some of the pharmaceutical leaders to pull the pharmaceutical industry into the industrial mainstreams are illustrated.

The advantages of using much advanced and improved plastics over stainless steel as disposable equipment is discussed from the view point of drug and vaccine manufacturers.

The partnerships between industry and university in U.S. has resulted in many commercially viable products with students getting hands-on industry experience but presently with universities negotiating for more attractive intellectual property (IP) ownership these partnerships are in trouble. U.S. industries might start approaching research partners in countries like India where researchers demand less IP control.

The Informex custom manufacturing trade show in San Francisco discussed Pfizer's new plans of closing various manufacturing sites in the U.S. and Ireland, as it intends to commercialize two products every year from outside the company. The new plan would affect small, as well as big companies tremendously, though the growing market of pharmacy in these countries might boost up the business with a sudden rise.

Pharmaceutical companies all over the world are having new cost-cutting programs across the industry focusing on improving manufacturing. Britest, the U.K.-based consortium has developed guidelines for process development to improve coordination among discovery chemistry, process development and engineering that would help to break down a debilitating cultural barrier in industry.

The effort to boost oil and gas extraction poses a range of technical and environmental challenges that in turn boost demand for oil-field chemicals. Drilling fluids are a new territory for a lot of the specialty chemical companies that have been drawn into the field by the upturn in drilling activity.

The chemical companies are targeting the information technology (IT) investments to new applications of existing systems, including logistics management, regulatory compliance, and intellectual property management by means of relatively low-cost software adaptations. The latest version of SAP, mySAP, incorporates an Internet-based data conduit called Netweaver and this will stand as the last major R/3 software revamp.

Fundamental changes erupt across the medical industry as companies strive to improve drug efficacy and safety and R&D efficiency in the face of negative public opinion. A 2005 Kaiser Family Foundation and Harris Interactive Poll revealed that although most people believed that drugs are having positive effects on their lives, the big drug companies appear to be motivated more by profits than by delivering lifesaving and life-improving medicines.

The value of alliances between drug majors and biotechnology has become new business practice due to its various benefits such as the need of products and technologies, money and clinical trials. An estimate revealed that the US biotechnology industry generated revenues in excess of $15 billion in 2005 through partnership, up from about $11 billion in 2004.

The medicinal chemistry has resurged as the next wave in biopharmaceuticals as the concept of pursuing drug development by understanding the biological processes and relying on rational drug design has fallen apart. The new biotechnology drugs that are coming to market and the latest developments are discussed.

The consulting industry is changing with much of its client base, including the chemical industry and is emerging from the recession period with completely different needs. Clients, too, are looking for short-term, targeted engagements with consultants who offer industry-specific expertise, years of experience and precise know-how.

Chemical companies including DuPont and BASF are turning to the business strategy of branding in an attempt to break from the past and reinvent their identity in response to various pressures and competition from newly emerging markets. The new strategy also underlines the desire of the companies to de-emphasize the word 'chemical' to counter a somewhat negative public perception of their activities.

The wisdom shown by chemical companies in having taken the time and spending money to install ERP systems has yielded a thorough standardization of information technology (IT) across the industry. The rapid development of both software and new uses of the Web in business has brought the chemical industry to the point of a generational change in IT, where the next investment is likely to be of more strategic importance than yet another upgrading to the latest release of R/3.

It is predicted that increasing R&D investment is helping to develop innovative products for fast-growing markets such as electronics and also for traditional markets. Coatings, adhesive, and detergents continue to be the areas of high R&D investment. Companies are now rationalizing their R&D spending and looking out for strategic locations like China to carry out their research activities.

Scott Noesen, director of sustainable development at Dow Chemical said that significant research efforts are underway to replace petroleum based products with products like plant oils, biotech products and products based on agricultural wastes. Some of the chemical companies have teamed with government agencies such as the Departments of Energy and agriculture in order to fund research on renewables.

Chief Information Officers in the chemical industry see a larger role for themselves in the post cost-cutting area and many feel that they will also have to play the role of strategists in the future. Most of the chemical industries have successfully improved their operational efficiency due to information technology upgradation and information officers will have to take over the handling of the system designs and achieve specific goals.

Informatics based approach taken by Tripos, which is a computational software firm that is located at Bude in England, towards drug discovery is mentioned. Tripos has an information technology (IT) infrastructure that allows access to information on screening libraries and chemistry research processes.