Thursday, March 27, 2008

Carlyle's Scarbody Fair?


Are you going to Scarbody Fair? Passionate rage, weaponry, and crime...
---(sung to the tune of the Simon & Garfunkel hit song).

The predatory Carlyle Group reportedly is eyeing Reed Elsevier's trade publications division, which includes the renowned British medical journal, The Lancet. Reed also has an exhibition division specializing in weapons fairs. Physicians encouraged the company to ditch the fairs, but to no avail.

Should the Carlyle Group buy these parts of Reed, they stand to make a killing. The sale of arms isn't declining world wide, even as George W. Bush conducts his full court press to "make the world safer". Also, a proposed FDA rule change will make medical journal articles on "off label uses" for drugs quite valuable. Big Pharma would likely pay premium prices for placement and the opportunity to market non-FDA approved uses of their drugs.

I hear some Carlyle cash registers ringing. As George Bailey told Clarence in It's a Wonderful Life, "That means another angel got its wings."