INFORMATION DECK ABOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE: Potential

Showing posts with label Potential. Show all posts

Friday, November 29, 2013

US Army expands commitment to potential recruits via mobile app, site

By Rimma Kats

March 2, 2011

The United States Army is extending its commitment to engage potential recruits via an iPhone application and mobile-optimized site.

The Army Strong Stories iPhone application and mobile site let users share their own Army Strong story, post comments and learn more about Army service and the careers available. The application is available?as a?free download in Apple?s App Store.

?With more than 600 soldier bloggers contributing to Army Strong Stories, many of them active duty, it was a natural next step to provide them with portable access to the site so they can share their stories, pictures and videos at anytime from anywhere,? said Bruce Jasurda, chief marketing officer of U.S. Army Accessions Command, Louiseville, KY.

?The U.S. Army remains committed to providing a transparent view of soldiers? daily lives and this mobile program helps enhance that transparency,? he said.

?Furthermore, the Army Strong Stories iPhone app and mobile Web site offer visitors portable access to new ArmyStrongStories.com content and features and enable them to ask questions, leave comments, and post new stories."

The U.S. Army Accessions Command, a subordinate command of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, meets the human resource needs of the Army by transforming volunteers into officers, warrant officers, and enlisted soldiers.

Army strong
Users can access the mobile site by entering http://m.armystrongstories.com on their mobile browsers.
Via the application and mobile site, users can upload written content, photos and videos.

Additionally, users can access information about the army and connect to its official Web site.

?The iPhone app is a pilot program to enable our bloggers to tell their stories easily with mobile technology, and the army is always evaluating additional mobile platforms to gauge program expansion,? Mr. Jasurda said. ?We are getting word out about this initiative through a variety of means.

?Through ongoing engagement and communication with our network of soldier bloggers, we notified them of this new tool so they can download and try it out,? he said. ?This was a request they made and we're excited to meet that request.

?We are also sharing the news through various internal, army communications channels, and conducting media and social media outreach to spread the word.?

Users can read blog posts

Users can read a soldier's particular blog

In addition, users can read posts from their favorite bloggers, comment on the posts and share stories on Facebook and Twitter.

?Given mobile adoption, use and interest, it is definitely an area of focus for the army,? Mr. Jasurda said. ?There are some other mobile programs in development that army will look to launch over the course of the coming months.??

Final Take
Here is a demo of the application

View the original article here

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Sanofi cholesterol drug touted as potential $3 billion blockbuster

By Natalie Huet

PARIS | Wed Sep 25, 2013 11:53am EDT

PARIS (Reuters) - A new cholesterol-lowering drug from Sanofi and Regeneron has the potential to become a $3-billion-dollar-plus blockbuster, according to analysts awaiting imminent late-stage trial results.

The drug, dubbed alirocumab, is part of a group of biotech medicines known as PCSK9 inhibitors that offer a new way of fighting the build-up of artery-clogging fatty deposits that put millions of patients worldwide at risk of heart attacks.

PCSK9 inhibitors are eyed as potentially the biggest advance in the fight against heart diseases since statin drugs such as Lipitor and Zocor, now widely available as cheap generics, were launched more than two decades ago.

The drugs are self-injectable, man-made antibodies targeting a protein that prevents the body from eliminating "bad" LDL cholesterol from the bloodstream. They work differently from statins - pills that inhibit the liver's production of LDL cholesterol in the first place.

"Physician feedback suggests high awareness amongst cardiologists and planned prescribing habits support multi-billion dollar potential for the class," Deutsche Bank analysts wrote in a note on Wednesday, forecasting peak annual sales of alirocumab of more than $3 billion.

Independent research firm BioMedTracker sees sales of alirocumab reaching $3.7 billion by 2023.

Sanofi and U.S. biotech firm Regeneron are among leaders in the race to bring a drug from this new class to market, neck-and-neck with Amgen. Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Roche have rival products at earlier stages of clinical development.

If positive, results from a first 100-patient trial - due any day now - will boost Sanofi's confidence in its drug, which may reach the market by 2015. But its ultimate success depends on longer-term studies involving thousands of patients, some of which will only produce results in around five years.

In the first Phase III study, alirocumab, which has cut levels of LDL cholesterol by up to 72 percent in Phase II trials, is being tested against Merck's Zetia, which can lower LDL cholesterol by 19-24 percent. Deutsche analysts expect it to easily achieve its goal in the trial.

PRICE HURDLE

Alirocumab is likely to used in patients with genetically-high cholesterol levels, high-risk patients who do not hit their cholesterol goals on statins alone, and patients intolerant to statins, whose side effects can include muscle pain.

Doctors at the European Society of Cardiology congress in Amsterdam earlier this month said PCSK9 drugs could be a valuable new weapon against heart disease.

But many were wary of predicting widespread use before seeing final-stage clinical data, following past disappoints with other heart drugs, including pills raising "good" HDL cholesterol.

The requirement for the new medicines to be injected and their expected high cost are also seen as potential deterrents, with pricing expected to be especially an issue in Europe, where healthcare spending is pressured by deficit-slashing policies.

For alirocumab, analysts expect a price of around $15 per day, comparable to the cost of injectable diabetes drugs known as GLP-1s, such as Novo Nordisk's Victoza.

At an investor conference earlier this month, Sanofi's CEO Chris Viehbacher said the French drugmaker could look at nearly doubling its stake in Regeneron, voicing confidence in the drug's success.

"When you look at the number of patients who are willing to inject themselves daily for diabetes, and you know a lot of those patients are also going to be in your patient population for PCSK9, I actually think that the injectable part is not going to be as big a barrier as people think," Viehbacher said.

"I think it is going to be a paradigm shift for healthcare and a potentially huge opportunity for us."

(Additional reporting by Ben Hirschler in London; Editing by David Cowell)

View the original article here