News

Takeda Pharmaceutical International has strengthened its Latin American foothold via the birth of a wholly-owned subsidiary in Ecuador.

US biopharmaceutical companies are currently developing 465 new medicines that target the 10 leading chronic conditions affecting people aged 65 and over, according to new industry data.

Canadian drugmaker Valeant Pharmaceuticals has signed a deal to acquire dermatology specialist Obagi Medical Products in a deal valued at around $344 million.

Spanish drugmaker Almirall has said it may decide to withdraw multiple sclerosis spasticity treatment Sativex from the German market after a breakdown in talks with the country’s reimbursement authorities.

Biogen Idec has posted positive new data for its investigational multiple sclerosis drug Plegridy showing that it can help cut relapse rates over the long term.

Chancellor George Osborne has unveiled a package of measures in the Budget 2013 designed to boost the UK’s life sciences sector, including a more favourable tax environment.

The market for contract research organisations (CRO) serving the pharmaceutical industry in China was worth RMB 22 to RMB 28 billion (US$3.5 billion to US$4.5 billion) in 2011, a new report says.

UK groups Cancer Research Technology (CRT) and the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London, have linked arms with Johnson & Johnson unit Janssen Biotech in a deal to discover a new drug for the blood cancer multiple myeloma.

For medicines intended for chronic use, the number of patients studied before regulatory approval in the European Union (EU) is insufficient to properly evaluate safety and long-term efficacy, and this points to a need for new EU legislation, say researchers writing in this week’s PLOS Medicine.

The US-based Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs is expecting “global repercussions” after Pfizer expanded its AAHRPP recognition to cover all of the company’s Phase II to IV clinical trials.

The German pricing watchdog IQWiG says it sees no additional benefit from Eylea in comparison to Novartis’s drug in wet age-related macular oedema.

Amgen’s investigational skin cancer treatment talimogene laherparepvec has impressed in a late-stage trial, but further survival data will be needed if it wants to gain approval.

Novartis and patients in England and Wales with advanced breast cancer will be disappointed with news that cost regulators have decided to bar access to Afinitor on the National Health Service.

It is not just recruiting and retaining patients that make rare-disease studies particularly challenging, it is also identifying and setting up the right sites, a survey of clinical development decision-makers has found.

Merck KGaA has been busy this week, signing a pact with Bristol-Myers Squibb for the promotion of Glucophage in China, and entering a strategic alliance with Nordic Bioscience for the development of sprifermin for osteoarthritis of the knee.