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Merck, Glenmark settle ZETIA patent litigation

Merck & Co., Inc. and Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Inc., USA and Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. have reached an agreement to settle their patent litigation involving Glenmark's challenge to Merck's patent covering ZETIA ® (ezetimibe). Specifically, Glenmark challenged Merck's basic compound patent, RE 37,721 (the "721 patent") on numerous grounds.

11 May 2010

Jubilant Organosys reports 17.7% increase in fourth-quarter consolidated revenue

Jubilant Organosys Limited, an integrated pharmaceutical industry player and the largest Custom Research and Manufacturing Services Company in India, today announced its financial results for Q4 & FY2010.

10 May 2010

BIOTX introduces Estrofil menopause supplements in North America

BIOTX Limited – a manufacturer and developer of dietary supplements based on Traditional Chinese Medicine, today launched Estrofil in North America - an all-natural nutritional menopause supplement for the relief of menopausal symptoms. This new menopause natural remedy is not estrogen or hormone replacement therapy.

10 May 2010

CVS calls on FDA to suspend use of contaminated rotavirus vaccines

On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) convened a panel of experts to review recent findings that rotavirus vaccines given to infants in the U.S., Rotateq, produced by Merck Pharmaceuticals and Rotarix produced by GlaxoSmithKline, are contaminated with DNA from pig viruses PCV1 and PCV2. On March 22nd the FDA Commissioner asked doctors to suspend use of the Rotarix vaccine due to the contamination. Upon additional testing, Rotateq was also found to be contaminated.

10 May 2010

Eisai enters Canadian pharmaceutical market

Eisai Inc., a U.S. subsidiary of Eisai Co., Ltd. today announces the establishment of Eisai Limited in Canada, the world's ninth largest pharmaceutical market. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eisai Inc., Eisai Limited will be based in Mississauga, Ontario, one of the largest biopharmaceutical clusters and medical communities in North America.

10 May 2010

Health Canada approves BDSI's NDS for ONSOLIS

BioDelivery Sciences International, Inc. today announced the approval of a New Drug Submission (NDS) by Health Canada, the regulatory authority in Canada, for ONSOLIS (fentanyl buccal soluble film) in the management of breakthrough pain in opioid-tolerant adult patients with cancer. ONSOLIS is the first product approved in Canada for this indication.

10 May 2010

Watson Pharmaceuticals first-quarter net revenue up 28% to $856.5M

Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today reported a 28 percent increase in net revenue for the first quarter ended March 31, 2010 to $856.5 million, compared to $667.4 million in the first quarter 2009. On an adjusted cash basis, net income increased 25 percent to $100.3 million or $0.81 per share, compared to $80.2 million or $0.69 per share in the first quarter 2009. GAAP earnings for the first quarter 2010 were $0.57 per share, compared to $0.43 per share in the prior year period.

10 May 2010

Healing Arts Cooperative Medical Marijuana to open new location in San Diego

International Merchant Advisors, Inc. announced today that the company's client, Healing Arts Cooperative Medical Marijuana is opening a new location in San Diego. IMAI has previously signed a management agreement to operate all of the Healing Arts Cooperative Medical Marijuana dispensaries and to operate the cooperative as the manager of the facility on behalf of its non profit owners. Healing Arts is a cash flow generating non profit, fulfilling the needs of medical marijuana patients in California and planning further expansion in the state.

10 May 2010

FDA approves Cipher's CIP-TRAMADOL ER for chronic pain

Cipher Pharmaceuticals Inc. today announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved CIP-TRAMADOL ER, the Company's extended-release tramadol product, for the treatment of moderate to moderately severe chronic pain in adults.

10 May 2010

American Oriental Bioengineering first-quarter revenue increases 16.7% to $53.7 million

American Oriental Bioengineering, Inc., a pharmaceutical company dedicated to improving health through the development, manufacture and commercialization of a broad range of prescription and over the counter products, today announced financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2010.

10 May 2010

Drug study results, interpretation favour wishes of sponsor pharmaceutical companies

Drug studies financed by pharmaceutical companies frequently show positive results in favour of the sponsor. In the current issue of Deutsches -rzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2010; 107(16): 279-85), a research group headed by the Chairman of the Drug Commission of the German Medical Association, Prof. Wolf-Dieter Ludwig, describes the influence of sponsoring on the results, protocol and quality of drugs studies.

10 May 2010

Forest, Nycomed to present data from six roflumilast posters at ATS International Conference

Forest Laboratories, Inc. and Nycomed today announced that they will present data from six roflumilast posters during the American Thoracic Society (ATS) International Conference being held in New Orleans, LA, May 14 through May 19, 2010. Roflumilast is an investigational anti-inflammatory, oral medication for the treatment of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) associated with chronic bronchitis in patients at risk of exacerbations.

10 May 2010

Takeda enters co-promotion agreement with Janssen Pharma for VELCADE

Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited and its wholly owned subsidiary Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company today announced that Takeda has entered into a co-promotion agreement with Janssen Pharmaceutical K.K. for VELCADE® (bortezomib) for Injection, a treatment for patients with multiple myeloma.

10 May 2010

GSK participates in FDA advisory committee's rotavirus vaccine meeting

GlaxoSmithKline today participated in a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee meeting convened to discuss recent findings of porcine circovirus (PCV) in rotavirus vaccines. Although the committee did not issue any formal recommendations, members widely acknowledged that the benefits of vaccinating infants worldwide against rotavirus disease clearly outweigh the theoretical risks associated with the presence of porcine circovirus type 1 (PCV-1) in the vaccines.

10 May 2010

Evotec and Genentech sign drug discovery deal

Evotec AG today announced that it has entered into a multi-year integrated drug discovery alliance with Genentech Inc., a wholly owned member of the Roche Group (SWX:RO) (SIX:ROG) (Pink Sheets:RHHBY), to discover novel small molecule therapeutics.

10 May 2010

Steroids can raise cardiovascular risks in post-transplant patients

Post-transplant patients who have been removed from a corticosteroid regimen have fewer cardiovascular events than those patients on steroids, increasing their graft survival rates and reducing early mortality, according to study results being presented this week by University of Cincinnati (UC) transplantation researchers.

10 May 2010

Scientists develop dry, inhalable measles vaccine, will begin testing in India this summer

CBSNews.com reports on the development of a dry, inhalable measles vaccine by researchers at the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU-Boulder), who hope that their work will "help pave the way for the inexpensive treatment of a range of other illnesses" (Cooper, 5/5).

10 May 2010

Study: PDE5 inhibitors may increase permeability of blood brain barrier to Herceptin

New research by scientists at Cedars-Sinai's Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute suggests that a drug currently approved to treat erectile dysfunction may significantly enhance the delivery of the anti-cancer drug Herceptin to certain hard-to-treat brain tumors.

10 May 2010

Watson Pharmaceuticals reaches patent litigation settlement with Teva Women's Health

Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that its subsidiary, Watson Laboratories, Inc. has reached a settlement with Teva Women's Health, Inc. on outstanding patent litigation related to Teva's Seasonale® (levonorgestrel and ethinyl estradiol tablets USP, 0.15 mg/0.03 mg) product.

10 May 2010

House committee to investigate Johnson & Johnson after kids' Tylenol recall

A House committee is looking at Johnson & Johnson after the company announced a recall of children's medicines. "Lawmakers requested information on Thursday from regulators about Johnson & Johnson's recall of Children's Tylenol and other over-the-counter pediatric medicines, saying the company's repeated recalls 'point to a major problem' with production," Reuters/The New York Times reports.

10 May 2010