Pharma Industry Archive

Genentech is to rely on Google’s online email and document products instead of buying the expensive computer-based software that Microsoft sells to large corporations, according to the Associated Press. Genentech will rent the products from Google: The Internet search and advertising leader will run Genentech’s e-mail, as well as some word processing, spreadsheet and calendar...

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A federal rule set to go into affect Jan. 18 will allow doctors and hospitals to withhold the Plan B “morning after” pill from rape victims if they so choose. The rule is designed to protect medical staff whose religious beliefs put even theoretical foetuses ahead of the needs of women who have been attacked. Plan B is a pill marketed by Barr Pharmaceuticals which acts as a...

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GlaxoSmithKline is to “voluntarily stop” its direct political contributions to U.S. elected officials. The move is a continuation of CEO Andrew Witty’s attempt to transform his company’s image from the angry-political-string-puller role it adopted earlier this year in Massachusetts to the kindler-gentler-more-transparent company that this move represents. GSK, however,...

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Wyeth will pay $120 million to Thiakis to obtain its anti-obesity drug candidate, TKS1225. In doing so, Wyeth has taken its first, expensive step into a disease category that many drug companies have entered, and all have failed. Obesity is a classic graveyard of failed drug brands. There’s a good reason why, and BNET readers will remember when Derek Lowe first explained it back in July:...

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European Medicines Agency recommends Lilly’s prasugrel for approval — The blood thinner has run up against a brick wall of delays from the FDA, but on the other side of the Atlantic, it’s gotten a nod from the EMEA (see Jim Edwards’s BNET post for the full story). That endorsement will inform the European Commission’s eventual approval decision for the drug, which...

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AstraZeneca has submitted a new drug application asking for approval to market Nexium for babies less than one year old. The company believes the drug is an appropriate short-term, second-line treatment for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). The application raises some interesting questions. It is well-known that babies throw up and spit up a lot, but it is much less well-known whether...

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A panel of the European Medicines Agency recommended the approval of prasugrel, Eli Lilly’s new blood thinner, and such recommendations are usually followed by the agency within a couple of months, Reuters reports. The news is a significant win in Lilly’s long campaign to get this drug to market. It also means that Lilly CEO John Lechleiter’s gamble in the acquisition of...

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GlaxoSmithKline bets on cardiovascular research, Dynavax partnership — Big strategic moves this week at GSK. The drug maker has launched a three year, 15,000 patient clinical trial for darapladib, which it hopes will stop the plaque that clogs arteries. The trial will be expensive, but analysts at UBS say the drug could bring in upwards of $7 billion annually. Meanwhile, GSK has spent...

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Is the acquisition price for Roche to buy Genentech actually getting cheaper? That is the tantalising notion raised in a column in the FT today. BNET readers will remember that the Roche-Genentech deal is conspicuous by its absence because Roche literally couldn’t find enough money to borrow to take care of the $44 billion cost of its $89-a-share bid. Genentech’s stock price hit the...

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Pfizer, the maker of Viagra, has struck a deal to sell Xiaflex, a drug that cures curvature of the penis due to a buildup of collagen in the organ’s shaft. There’s just one drawback to Xiaflex — it’s administered by injection. This site and this site both suggest that the site for the injection needs to be the penis itself, a sure drawback to sales. Curvature of the...

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