At Windhover's annual Marketing Pharmaceutical Innovation (MPI) conference in November, industry executives wrestled with an emerging dilemma -- how to win managed care's support for drugs that exhibit only minor improvements to existing products, while new over-the-counter (OTC) options surface.

If new disclosure rules proposed by the SEC become final as expected, they will make the Current Report Form 8-K filed by public companies more timely and more revealing--both about themselves and their partners. The rules stipulate 11 new reportable events, three of which are directly related to alliances, and the SEC also wants management to analyze the impact of the events they disclose. Life sciences lawyers say it's not fully clear what sorts of things companies in this sector will have to report: the impact of new 8-k rules will be decided with practice.

Perrigo’s clinical trials on CBD likely will take years before resulting products help bring order to the market. During earnings presentation, CEO Murray Kessler says the trials aren’t intended to establish claims for CBD but are more a long-term effort to provide data to FDA.