News

Novartis has completed its exit from the hepatitis C arena and given back the rights to alisporivir to fellow Swiss firm Debiopharm.

Roche is paying over $1 billion to acquire a majority stake in molecular information company Foundation Medicine as part of its push towards personalised cancer care.

Sanofi and Regeneron say that regulators in Europe have agreed to review their closely-watched cholesterol drug alirocumab, which they intend to market as Praluent.

Cost regulators for the National Health Service in Scotland have closed the door to Roche’s Avastin for ovarian cancer, but six new medicines were waved through.

With the much-hyped JP Morgan Healthcare Conference kicking off later today in San Francisco, the UK life sciences community is flocking over the Atlantic to “raise the Union flag in Union Square”.

Details of the eagerly-awaited NHS Cancer Drugs Fund review has been released, which shows that its budget will grow but 16 drugs (covering 25 indications) out of 84 drugs will be chopped.

2014 was a good year for new orphan drugs in Europe, with a record number put forward for approval by the European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use, as the overall total inched up from last year.

Biogen Idec has snapped up UK-based Convergence Pharmaceteuticals in a deal worth up to $675 million, buying into the latter’s expertise in chronic pain research to boost growth of its own pain fortfolio.

NHS England has launched a new programme to test innovative ways of diagnosing cancer more quickly at over 60 sites across the country.

After months of rumours, Shire is buying fellow rare disease specialist NPS Pharmaceuticals in a transaction worth $5.2 billion.

A committee of MPs says it has found “huge” variations in funding for clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), ranging from £137 per person below their fair share of available funding in Corby to £361 per person above their fair share in West London.

Healthcare group Circle has entered into discussions to pull out of its contract to run Hinchingbrooke, the first NHS hospital to be run by a private firm.

The US Food and Drug Administration has given the green light to Daiichi Sankyo’s anti-clotting drug edoxaban, to be marketed as Savaysa.

Bristol-Myers Squibb’s nivolumab has become the first PD-1 compound to receive Promising Innovative Medicine status from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), for the treatment of advanced skin cancer.

As details dribble out about which treatments are going to be cut from the Cancer Drugs Fund, Novartis, which expects to see Afinitor chopped, has added its voice to criticism of the de-listing process.