Two Democratic politicians hope to establish a separate federal institute to compare drugs in clinical trials. “Not enough credible, empirically based information is available for providers and payers to make decisions on alternative treatments and diagnostics for the most common conditions. New services become routine medical care without their comparative effectiveness being taken into account, the commission said,” says this article in FDA News.

Business Week has a sobering look at a new generation of hacking and malware tactics. There is a new U.S. program to address the threat. In some cases, attackers from abroad are able to guess or intercept emails and generate spoof messages to the same recipients. Those emails appear to be genuine and dupe sophisticated users into opening attachments that, in turn, plant programs that record user passwords and other data. The magazine says that Microsoft security defects, especially in Powerpoint presentations and Access databases, allow hackers employed or tolerated by the Chinese government to attack the U.S. government and private military contractors. Here’s the story.

The size of the market for devices to monitor patient health in the home is $8 billion, according to research firm Kalorama. Honeywell, GE, and Abbott are investing in data centers and other infrastructure to compete, the report says. Algorithms to detect significant changes in a patient’s health will be important, the report suggests. “Data is important, but if your system only gathers data, you are just increasing the burden on the workers who have to then interpret that data,” said Melissa Elder, an analyst for Kalorama. Here’s a news account about the report.

An ad for presidential candidate Barack Obama criticizes the inability of the federal government to negotiate with drug companies. The ad refers to Billy Tauzin, the Louisiana Congressman who wrote the law and then went to work for PhRMA. “And you know what? The chairman of the committee, who pushed the law through, went to work for the pharmaceutical industry, making $2 million a year,” Obama says in the TV ad. The story was in the Louisana Times-Picayune.

The Wall Street Journal says that “strategy” officers are a new trend in big pharma. In some cases, the initiatives are euphemistic ways to describe massive layoffs. In others, they’re sincere attempts to find new opportunities. The newspaper reports: “J&J in November created an Office of Strategy and Growth. Its mission is to identify new business opportunities in health care that are distinct from its current businesses of pharmaceuticals, medical devices and consumer products. J&J has indicated one new potential opportunity is in health-care information technology.”

Remember yesterday’s story about another TeGenero in London? People in the hospital? Parexel maintains the London tabloid got everything wrong. “The article incorrectly claimed that two volunteers were hospitalized after participating in a clinical trial, involving a pharmaceutical product being developed for the treatment of addictions, at a Parexel U.K. site,” the contract research organization said in a one-paragraph statement. “This report is completely inaccurate. In fact, the study is running smoothly without incident.”

Separately, Parexel’s Perceptive Informatics technology division announced a new product for clinical trial monitors. The firm’s clinical trial management system, Impact, now has a version that fits on a “thumb” or USB drive. “Clinical monitors can now securely upload site visit information onto the USB drive, without carrying their laptop computers with them,” the company’s news release says. “We expect that clinical monitors will benefit from increased flexibility, productivity, and efficiency with the option to easily and securely capture site visit information from anywhere in the world at any time, using the new portable functionality of the Impact Mysites USB drive,” said Todd Joron, corporate VP and general manager of Perceptive Informatics. “This capability represents an important step toward a truly mobile eclinical environment.”

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