TASK DEFINITION: Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.
PROBLEM: Luke Miels, who joined GSK in September 2017 after a contract dispute with his former employer AstraZeneca, said picking the most promising projects and developing them quickly now takes precedence over spreading the risk of failure. “In the past, 10 programs were chosen, a budget for eight was allocated. Usually what happened was that time was the trade off that was made,” he said in an interview. “Now what we do is we pick five or six programs, and concentrate investment there.”   GSK, like rivals, was in the habit of testing new drugs first on patients who had run out of other treatment options. If successful, it would try patients at an earlier stage of their disease, replacing older, established treatments. In today’s market, where rivals in the United States and China catch up fast if a new class of drug shows promise, GSK has to run costly drug tests on humans in several settings at the same time, even if it means dropping other drug candidates. “Rather than do things sequentially, you do them in parallel, or as close to parallel as possible,” Miels said. GSK, which is battling to return to profit growth, has taken this approach for instance with an experimental drug that for now goes by the code name of GSK’916 against multiple myeloma, a common and incurable type of blood cancer. Likewise, GSK doubled down on its quest to bring a drug known as GSK’165 to market as a rheumatoid arthritis treatment, even after initial results in a mid-stage drug trial did not show a clear enough reading. “This drug has very interesting effects on pain. That could potentially reduce the use of opioids and pain meds,” Miels said. More trials will be run to make the pain argument more clearly, he added. GSK expects a decline of 5%-9% in adjusted earnings per share this year, excluding exchange rate moves, as it suffers from generic competition to its inhalable lung drug Advair and pressure from rival Gilead in HIV treatments. Miels said a tougher stance on drug prices by U.S. lawmakers and medical insurers was one of the reasons for the need for speed in bringing drugs to market - to try to remain ahead of competitors for as long as possible. At the same time, rapid growth in the Chinese market was spurring a more sophisticated healthcare system there, with local biotech groups quick to catch up with Western pioneers in drug development, producing similar drugs for their home market.

SOLUTION: GSK pharma head flags need for speed in high-pressure drug market.

PROBLEM: "While these studies examined prostate cancer mortality rates and treatment outcomes, monetary costs are an important part of the larger conversation about the value of screening. There are significant financial costs associated with population-wide screenings, along with the follow-up diagnostic procedures and treatments that these studies suggest are of little benefit. The reporter should have referenced costs of screening and treatments at least briefly. There are two studies involved here, each with its own methodology, outcomes and limitations. Under the circumstances the news report describes the findings adequately, using a broad brush. The report states that the U.S. study found no decline in death risk in the screened population, while the European study showed a 20 percent reduced risk of death–yet it also documented considerable overtreatment. The reporter gets points for using the always valuable ""number needed to treat"" measure to describe the European findings: 48 additional men would need to be treated to prevent one death from prostate cancer. The story focuses in part on the harms of overdiagnosis and overtreatment. The story is based on results of two high-quality clinical trials, and it describes the methodologies sufficiently. The story does an excellent job of laying out the caveats very early: that the results won’t end the controversy over the value of prostate cancer screening; and that the studies continue and may provide clearer answers in the future. The reporter gets extra points for mentioning too that the two studies aren’t directly comparable. The report does nothing to exaggerate the effects of prostate cancer or its treatments. The reporter includes comments from the lead authors of the two studies, the author of a related editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine, and a physician representing the American Cancer Society. The story adequately explains that screening options include the PSA blood test and the digital rectal exam. The story also refers to the options for treatment after a cancer is identified, indicating that ""there’s no agreement on the best treatment approach""–watchful waiting, surgery, hormone therapy or radiation. The wide use of the PSA test is implied throughout the story. No claims are made for the novelty of the screening techniques or the findings of the study. The story does not appear to draw directly from press releases of NIH, the Washington University School of Medicine, or others publicizing the results."

SOLUTION: Studies don’t end prostate cancer test controversy

PROBLEM: "One of the biggest question marks over Florida’s proposed medical marijuana amendment is over who will use it. According to an opposition group, it’s not who you may think. Don’t Let Florida Go To Pot, a campaign run by a coalition of more than 40 organizations opposing Amendment 2, says on its website that most patients don’t suffer from the life-threatening diseases often associated with medical marijuana use. ""Less than 5 percent of registered users in states allowing medical marijuana have cancer or AIDS,"" it says. The site ramped up earlier in May, and is run by St. Petersburg lobbyist group Save Our Society From Drugs. They use information from the Florida Sheriffs Association. Cancer and AIDS are often cited by proponents of medical marijuana as the diseases that marijuana can help. We were curious to know if it’s true that only 5 percent of patients who use the drug have those two diseases. Let’s check the registries and find out. Playing percentages Florida’s Amendment 2 specifically names cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, hepatitis C, ALS, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis as eligible for treatment. It also allows for ""other conditions for which a physician believes that medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the potential health risks for a patient."" That provides doctors plenty of latitude to make recommendations for things not on the list, like chronic pain or muscle spasms. Marijuana is typically recommended to cancer patients to treat nausea and vomiting from chemotherapy treatments. AIDS patients often use it to treat nausea, pain and loss of appetite. The big problem with tracking why medical marijuana patients use the drug is that the rules and record-keeping vary widely among the 21 states that allow it. Eric Pounders, spokesman for the Florida Sheriffs Association, said the 5 percent figure comes from an average Save Our Society From Drugs calculated from data from 15 states, which all report things in different ways. For example, statistics from Rhode Island say 4 percent of users there have cancer, and 1 percent have HIV/AIDS. New Jersey says 2.3 percent use marijuana for a terminal illness. Vermont allows conditions to remain confidential. Washington has no database of users or their conditions. California has no mandatory patient registration. The Marijuana Policy Project, a national group that tracks state regulations and favors the Florida amendment, says only six states routinely update comprehensive user data, so Don’t Let Florida Go To Pot’s list of 15 states is suspect. Karen O’Keefe, the project’s director of state policies, says a state like Alaska (which Pounders cited) doesn’t keep very accurate records on patients at all. At any rate, the numbers reflect a trend among the states that report conditions: A very small number of medical marijuana patients have cancer or AIDS. Opponents think that’s a big problem. ""We want to show Floridians that the disease groups they are constantly hearing about, are not the ones that marijuana is primarily treating,"" Pounders said. He said pro-marijuana groups often use those two diseases to appeal to people’s sympathies. Dr. Gary Reisfield, from the University of Florida’s psychiatry department, agreed. While he said the 5 percent was comparable to research he’d seen, the outsized use of the two diseases as an example was a smokescreen by advocates. ""Cancer and HIV are the camel's nose under the tent,"" he told PolitiFact Florida. ""Physicians, most of whom favor medical cannabis legislation, will acquiesce to their patients' demands for cannabis for other ‘debilitating conditions,’ like pain, muscle spasm, headaches, insomnia and anxiety."" Those are the kinds of conditions for which most patients are treated, said Dr. Barth Wilsey of the University of California Davis Medical Center. He pointed to a University of Michigan study last year that found 87 percent of sample patients from a Michigan clinic sought medical marijuana for pain relief, either on its own or in conjunction with other conditions. Cancer was cited as 3.4 percent of the sample and people with AIDS were combined with hepatitis C under ""chronic infection,"" and totaled 2.3 percent. Wilsey added that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with patients wanting to relieve pain, especially because most medical marijuana patients turn to the drug only after exhausting other options. He said he thought Don’t Let Florida Go To Pot was ""trivializing"" patients suffering from very real medical issues. ""The significance of this statement is tempered by the fact that millions of Americans suffer from chronic pain. One type, neuropathic pain, is particularly difficult to treat,"" Wilsey said. ""One thing is certain, we need more research on medical marijuana and less decision-making by legislatures and referendums."" Our ruling Don’t Let Florida Go To Pot said ""less than 5 percent of registered users in states allowing medical marijuana have cancer or AIDS."" The medical marijuana opponents that run the website said they estimated their total using figures from states with current laws allowing the drug. Not all states report figures the same way, however, or may not report them at all. Patients who don’t have cancer or AIDS still may have legitimate reasons to use medical marijuana, including for pain relief. So the statistic Don't Let Florida Go to Pot cites isn't perfect. But the available evidence does suggest fairly strongly that the people who use medical marijuana for cancer or AIDS is a small percentage of all users."

SOLUTION:
Less than 5 percent of registered users in states allowing medical marijuana have cancer or AIDS.