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LFB Biotechnologies exercises its option to purchase $12.8 million of stocks in GTC Biotherapeutics

GTC Biotherapeutics, Inc. announced that LFB Biotechnologies, a wholly owned subsidiary of LFB S.A. (Laboratoire français du Fractionnement et des Biotechnologies S.A., Les Ulis, France) and a strategic shareholder in GTC, has exercised its option to purchase $12.8 million of additional convertible preferred stock under the terms described in the financing agreements approved by GTC shareholders in July 2009. This transaction provides $6.4 million of new cash proceeds to GTC.

2 Nov 2009

Enzo Biochem announces results of EGS21 clinical trial for treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis

Enzo Biochem Inc. announced today that favorable results of the Company’s clinical trial for treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) were presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. The study was a randomized double blind placebo controlled format of EGS21, Enzo’s orally administered beta glucosylceramide formulation, designed to evaluate safety and efficacy of the study drug in patients with NASH and its associated metabolic syndrome.

2 Nov 2009

Ligand Pharmaceuticals amends license agreement with Exelixis

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated has amended its license agreement with Exelixis, Inc. as a result of which Ligand is now entitled to receive royalties on net sales of future products from a mineralocorticoid receptor program and a one-time $75,000 payment for providing access to certain patent rights.

2 Nov 2009

Insurers, other interest groups prepare for final health reform votes

Insurance companies are arguing that the health reform legislation progressing in Congress would increase premium costs for many Americans. Meanwhile, some of the coalitions have begun to splinter.

2 Nov 2009

Click4Care releases next-generation Utilization Management module for health plan users

Click4Care, a leading provider of care management software for payors, today announced the next-generation Utilization Management (UM) module for its industry leading software platform. By leveraging the UM solution’s extensive configurability, payors and providers can achieve greater levels of productivity while improving clinical, administrative and financial performances.

2 Nov 2009

A return to the doctor's house call may aid health care reform

Dr. Peter Boling provides house calls for some of Richmond's oldest and sickest patients as a geriatrician and head of general medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center. The Associated Press/Richmond Times Dispatch reports that "he is on a mission: To convince Congress that the old-fashioned house call could be a fresh answer to the modern-day health care reform dilemma.

2 Nov 2009

A look at faculty health

On average, research shows, the United States loses the equivalent of at least one entire medical school class each year to suicide1 - as many as 400 physicians. The book Faculty Health in Academic Medicine: Scientists, Physicians, and the Pressures of Success (Humana Press/Springer), by faculty at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and other national medical experts, breaks new ground in a first-of-its-kind look at faculty health.

2 Nov 2009

Study of combination therapy versus monotherapy for pulmonary arterial hypertension

Gilead Sciences, Inc., in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), today announced plans for an international, event-driven (morbidity and mortality) clinical trial to study combination therapy versus monotherapy in a first-line treatment setting for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).

2 Nov 2009

NIH awards $1.2 million to GE Global Research to develop a low-cost transducer

In the quest to expand access to high quality prenatal care to communities with limited healthcare services, GE Global Research, the technology development arm for the General Electric Company, has been awarded a two-year, $1.2 million project under the federal stimulus program from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop a low-cost transducer for portable ultrasound systems that maintains the highest degree of image quality.

2 Nov 2009

Today's opinions and editorials

When conservatives scream about socialized medicine and death panels, you should tune them out. But lately conservatives have been making an argument you should hear. It's about whether we can believe Congress when it promises to raise taxes or cut spending--and, as such, whether we can believe that health care reform can actually be fiscally responsible (Jonathan Cohn, 11/2).

2 Nov 2009

Cyberonics to develop medical devices with cutting edge technology for persons suffering from epilepsy

Cyberonics, Inc. today announced another in a series of collaborations around seizure detection technology aimed at advancing its development of new and more efficacious medical devices for persons suffering from epilepsy.

2 Nov 2009

EnzymeRx commences patient enrollment in Uricase-PEG 20 phase 1 study

EnzymeRx, LLC (www.enzymerx.com), a clinical-stage biotechnology company, announced that it has launched its first clinical study of Uricase-PEG 20. Subjects have begun enrolling in a phase 1 safety, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic study of single intravenous doses of Uricase-PEG 20.

2 Nov 2009

Heart, cancer doctors get break on scheduled Medicare pay cuts

Heart and cancer doctors will get a smaller fee cut next year from Medicare, the U.S. government program for the elderly, than the Obama administration first sought in a move to shift money to family physicians," Bloomberg reports. Earlier this year, Medicare officials said they would cut 10 percent of payments for the two specialties. Now, they plan on making the reductions over four years, instead.

2 Nov 2009

The Clorox Company anounces fiscal 2010 first-quarter results

The Clorox Company today reported strong earnings growth, driven by robust gross margin expansion and modest volume growth, for its first quarter, which ended Sept. 30.

2 Nov 2009

CBO: Few Americans would sign up for public health insurance plan

The New York Times: "More and more, the Great Health Care Debate of 2009 is a numbers game. And the longer the debate goes on, the squishier the numbers seem to get. For months, many leading Democrats, including President Obama, have pushed for the creation of a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers. A main argument was that a public plan would save people money. It would not be under pressure to earn profits, pay high private-sector salaries or deny needed care."

2 Nov 2009

Health Dialog's initiative to build a health center in rural Ecuador

Building on its commitment to improving health globally, Health Dialog is participating in a volunteer initiative to build a vital health center in the small town of Miraflores, Ecuador, where a doctor visits only six times a year because of the remote location.

2 Nov 2009

Obama's health reform political maneuvers may prove successful

"After months of plodding work by five Congressional committees and weeks of back-room bargaining by Democratic leaders, President Obama's arms-length strategy on health care appears to be paying dividends, with the House and the Senate poised to take up legislation to insure nearly all Americans," The New York Times reports.

2 Nov 2009

Aribex alleges patent infringement of its handheld X-ray, files a complaint against Bio-Ray Prox

Aribex, Inc., of Orem, Utah, today announced that it has filed a patent infringement complaint for unspecified damages against manufacturer DigiMed Co., Ltd (of Seoul, Korea), Sigma Biomedics (of Buffalo Grove, Illinois), and Dentalaire Products (of Fountain Valley, Calif.). Sigma and Dentalaire distribute the Bio-Ray Prox, a portable X-ray device which is manufactured in Korea by DigiMed.

2 Nov 2009

States will implement many health reform initiatives

"The debate over whether to let states opt out of any government-run health insurance plan overlooks a key facet of the health-care measures being assembled in Congress: When Washington is done, the shape of any new health-care system is likely to be finalized in Lansing and Boise and Baton Rouge," The Washington Post reports.

2 Nov 2009

2009 EACTS Techno-College Innovation Award to Clear Catheter Systems for its PleuraFlow system

Clear Catheter Systems, a private medical device company pioneering proprietary medical catheter anti-occlusion technologies, has been awarded the 2009 EACTS Techno-College Innovation Award for its PleuraFlow Active Tube Clearance System. The Techno-College Award is a worldwide competition to identify innovations with the potential to change the standard of care in heart and lung surgery.

2 Nov 2009