Author: Kevin Grogan

Results from an eagerly-awaited Canadian study appear to have put paid to any hopes that Bayer may have had of getting its controversial heart surgery drug Trasylol back onto the market.

Pharmaceutical firms have been defending direct-to-consumer advertising at a US Congress hearing brought to discuss whether tougher restrictions are needed to stop “misleading and deceptive tactics” being used to promote certain drugs.

Japan’s Takeda has posted healthy net income growth for the year ended March 2008 but warned that profits next year will be battered by the effects of its $8.8 billion acquisition of the USA’s Millennium Pharmaceuticals.

Shares in Sanofi-Aventis have declined this morning after a Swiss generics firm said that it is close to getting approval for a copycat version of the French drugmaker’s anti-platelet agent blockbuster Plavix.

Bayer has signed a deal which will see the German healthcare major license out some products from its clinical and early-stage oncology portfolio to a newly-formed firm ACT Biotech.