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SIG wins prize for PET
Item code bodies agree electronic standards
Network prescribed for pharmacists
BASF, Phytodyne seek new soy traits
Give yourselves a pat on the back
US consumers reject antibiotic-raised meat
Science
SIG wins
prize for PET
German packaging company SIG
Corpoplast has won the prestigious science prize from the Reinhold Hagen
foundation, Bonn, for Plasmax, the novel PET barrier technology it
developed with Schott HiCotec. The endowed prize is worth 10,000 euros.
The Plasmax technology improves the
barrier properties of PET bottles. The barrier layer protects any
sensitive drink from diffusion of oxygen into the bottle and carbon
dioxide losses are considerably reduced. The first machine series is
designed for a throughput of 10,000 bottles per hour. A prototype coating
machine is going into full industrial scale trials at a customer in
Switzerland. The market release is planned for the end of 2003.
e-Networks
Item code
bodies agree electronic standards
EAN International and the Uniform
Code Council (UCC) are to oversee development of the Electronic Product
Code (EPC) Network. The EPC Network unifies item identification numbering,
radio frequency (RFID) tags and networked product information into a
powerful system for managing supply chains.
UK supply chain standards trade
body e.centre welcomed the news.
The new set up is a result of an
agreement between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which
has largely developed RFID technology, and standards bodies EAN
International and the Uniform Code Council.
e.centre director of policy and
research Andrew Osborne said “Broadly, EPC technology will provide
greater visibility of items in the supply chain. Having more detailed and
accurate information about products will improve inventory management and
replenishment practices, resulting in a reduction of lost sales due to
out-of-stocks. Identification and tracking of individual items will also
reduce theft and counterfeiting.
"EPC will bring a new world in
which all products are individually identified with radio frequency tags
and information about these products is available instantly from the
Internet. Companies operating in global markets can rest assured that
there will continue to be a single reliable standard for identifying and
tracking products moving in trade.”
EAN International and UCC will set
up AutoID Inc, a not-for-profit organisation to oversee the
commercialisation and technical standards required to bring EPC to market.
Network
prescribed for pharmacists
US retail pharmacists now have
access to an online marketing tool, Pharmacist e-Link. The Internet portal
is a venture between the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA)
and Strategic Domain, which designed, built, and is helping to market the
site. See www.pharmacistelink.com.
Prescription retail pharmacy from
independents, chain, supermarket, and mass merchandiser pharmacies, is
worth nearly $150 billion/y. Independent drug stores account for $60
billion.
The portal offers daily pharmacy
and industry news updates, product news and highlights, disease-specific
information, patient education materials, business calculators, pricing
tools, and more.
Sponsors can post information to
the website, and also e-mail pharmacists. Tracking capabilities and other
technologies will enable all sponsors to monitor pharmacist usage and
awareness. At launch, 11 drug makers and suppliers had signed up as
charter sponsors. These were Eli Lilly, Ortho-McNeil, Janssen
Pharmaceutica, Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, Roche, Mallinckrodt,
ScriptPro, McNeil, Wyeth, and Mylan.
Joint
ventures
BASF, Phytodyne seek
new soy traits
Private Iowa biotech company
Phytodyne has teamed up with Germany’s BASF Plant Science to develop a
new transformation system for soybeans. Financial terms were not
disclosed.
BASF Plant Science will support
R&D on RetroGene, a novel plant transformation system discovered and
developed by Phytodyne. RetroGene will be effective in whole plants and
will not require costly tissue culture and regeneration of plants from
cells. “Phytodyne’s system will provide a more cost-effective means of
plant transformation that could be used on a wide range of crops,”
Phytodyne president Jon Leafstedt said.
“BASF Plant Science has a strong
research program to develop valuable soybean traits, and Phytodyne has the
technology to put those traits into soybean plants more effectively than
traditional transformation methods.”
Selling
Give
yourselves a pat on the back
The 15th Harris Poll shows US
customers giving top marks to supermarkets and packaged food companies for
service.
The annual poll ranks 15 industries
on how well they serve consumers. Supermarkets and food companies are new
entries. Fully 85% believe supermarkets do a good job of serving their
consumers, and 75% feel this way about the packaged food companies. Next
come hospitals (73%), banks (72%), computer hardware (71%), and software
(70%) companies.
Only 30% think tobacco companies
and managed care companies do a good job, and only 40% think health
insurance companies do so. Oil companies (42%) are marginally better.
Drug companies saw a 10-point slide
in their score from 59% to 49%. The focus on drug prices, and the
attendant bad publicity dropped
their positive rating from 79% in 1997, to 73% in 1998, 66% in 1999, and
59% in 2000. “Last year we thought this slide might have bottomed out
(as) it had not changed significantly for two years, but now the downward
trend has continued with another sharp fall to only 49%,” said the
Harris researchers. Drug firms companies ranked fourth in 1977; this year
they rank 11th.
Nutrition
US
consumers reject antibiotic-raised meat
Three of four of all Americans
worry about antibiotics in their meat, but most of them don’t know that
this is what they buy in most supermarkets.
According to a new study, their
concern about antibiotics ranks behind price, flavour and food safety. But
only 48% are aware that most beef and poultry bought from American
supermarkets are raised on feed that contains antibiotics.
Only 27% of those surveyed know of
the scientific debate on the overuse of antibiotics in animals raised for
food. Once they learn of the reports that show the effect on humans of the
overuse of antibiotics in animal feed, 59% had a high desire to avoid
these products and want meat and poultry raised without such antibiotics.
The survey of 1,000 Americans was
conducted by Synovate in spring 2003, and was commissioned by Whole Foods
Market, the nation's largest natural and organic foods supermarket. The
survey is representative of the general United States adult population and
has a margin of error of 3.1%.
People build up resistance to the
antibiotics contained in beef and chicken meat. This makes similar drugs
less effective when doctors prescribe them to treat patients.
The Union of Concerned Scientists
estimates that 70% of all antibiotics in the US are now fed to animals
raised for human consumption to speed up the animals' growth or prevent
illness amid crowded, unsanitary conditions on factory farms.
Only one percent of the total US
beef and poultry sales comes from animals raised without antibiotics
throughout their lifecycle, said David Smith, vice president of marketing,
Whole Foods Market. "The major concern about antibiotic usage and the
low awareness of its prevalence in meat production indicates a significant
demand for antibiotic-free, natural meat once consumers become educated
about the issue."
Politicians such as Ted Kennedy and
Sherrod Brown plan to introduce bills soon to phase out the routine use of
medically important antibiotics in poultry and livestock. Over 170 groups,
including the American Medical Association, endorsed similar legislation
introduced in the last Congress. |
