Drug giant Novo Nordisk's big white bus will soon roll into the USA. Officially known as the Novo Nordisk Changing Diabetes Bus, the vehicle is scheduled to visit a selection of towns in the USA between June and November. First, though, it's the turn of those lucky Canadians. The tour kicked off in Denmark back in September 2006 and goes under the banner "Changing Diabetes." Since Denmark, the bus and its crew have visited the following countries: Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, South Africa, Australia, China, Japan, and Canada. (Cool job, huh?) The Canada sojourn will last a few more days - 'till June 12, to be exact - then it's time to cross the border into the US. Last stop is New York City, where the tour will end on November 14, which is World Diabetes Day. Oddly, the Novo "bus" is actually a big truck, at least according to the pics I'm viewing on Novo's snazzy website. I guess calling it a bus tour makes it sound a tad folksier...more Partridge Family, less soulless pharmaceutical empire? But I digress...

The Changing Diabetes Bus tour is touted by Novo as an attitude-altering event with its high-tech educational displays that are housed on board the bus/truck. (See the website for a fun virtual tour of the bus.) A vehicle for change, if you will (yukkity yuk) designed to reach out to everyone: diabetics, their families, healthcare providers, as well as curious Average Joes. The specific purpose, says Novo, is to support the passing of a United Nations resolution on diabetes. Listen, I hate to be catty, but it's been an awareness-raising event in more ways than one, don't you agree? It's been a great promotional venture. An all around image-polishing exercise for Novo too. Hey, that's not to say this tour has not done good things to educate the public. I mean, it's good that mega-companies like that put aside money in the budget for feel-good, reach-out-to-the-community stuff. But let's be honest. Would they have put up the cash if their name wasn't plastered all over? Probably not.

Scientists in Germany are reporting development of a urine test that finally can identify athletes who misuse certain kinds of insulin in an illicit attempt to enhance performance.

An article scheduled to appear in an April edition of Analytical Chemistry says it is possible to detect the misuse of insulin in a urine sample. Scientists had not attempted to develop a test in the past because of the presumption that it was impossible to detect misuses of insulin. Because insulin is rationed and used efficiently by the body, a byproduct of insulin would be theoretically undetectable. However, with the advent of the newer long-acting insulin analogues, scientists are now able to identify degradation product in the urine.

The test does not identify residue from the use of two other forms of long-duration insulin. However, the test does identify the misuse of Lantus, manufactured by Sanofi-aventis. Determination of long-acting insulin analogues in urine is especially helpful for doping control purposes. The procedure provides a fast and reliable way to identify the misuse of the long-acting insulin analogue LAN in regular doping control specimens.

So the price of drugs just seems to keep on climbing. And sometimes I wonder if the sky really is the limit in terms of the prices we are expected to pay. I, for example, just filled a prescription and received a tiny bottle the size of a purse-pack-sized bottle of eye drops. And how much did I pay? $25. Yes, and that's with insurance. It's insane. But it's not happening everywhere. In western Europe, where publicly-owned, government-run health care systems are the norm, people are putting the squeeze on the big pharmaceutical companies.

Let's look at insulin. A while ago there was a kerfuffle in the UK when government advisers overseeing the National Health Service basically said "no, thanks" to Pfizer's inhalable insulin, Exubera. Too expensive, they said. Now, Germany. This week, the biggies - Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi-Aventis - decided to slash the cost of their insulin products in Germany. Why? Officials from Germany's health ministry say the new fast-acting versions of insulin just aren't worth the money. That left Big Pharma with little option but to play ball anyway, by cutting prices by up to thirty percent. For Novo Nordisk, this means a projected loss of $14.5 million in sales this year, reports Bloomberg.com. According to this article, the German government is, in this regard, following in the footsteps of the UK and the US. In effect, this means trying to cut spending by carefully weighing the costs of specific drugs against their benefits, rather than just picking up the tab willy-nilly.

Bottom line? Market expert Mark Belsey says the big drug producers will have to adapt as the tide turns, spending a lot more time and money justifying the worth of their products. This new strategy, he says, will come at the expense of what used to be their main focus: creating and marketing fancy new mega-drugs.