Pharma Industry Archive

The pressure on Elan Pharmaceuticals CEO Kelly Martin to resign is increasing. Crabtree Partners, an investment company, sent a letter to Elan’s board calling for the termination of Martin. But an interesting side-note in this soap opera is the history of Elan’s general counsel, Richard Collier. Crabtree is bewildered that Elan’s management are separated in different offices...

More...

UPDATE — AstraZeneca failed to respond has now responded to BNET’s request for comment, see below. The company also provided a statement to Pharmalot. The company confirmed its sponsorship of Nobel organizations but denied it had influenced the judges: “Because the Nobel Committee of Karolinska Institute, and not the Nobel companies, elects candidates for the prize,...

More...

Schering-Plough pays counsel $500,000 bonus as thousands lose jobs — A recent SEC filing revealed that Tom Sabatino, the company’s general counsel, received a $500,000 bonus for “strong performance” and “increased responsibility,” at a time when 5,500 S-P employees are losing their jobs in cost-cutting measures. [Source: Pharmalot] Bristol-Myers Squibb...

More...

Sanofi-Aventis‘ vaccine division, Sanofi Pasteur, wants to move its HQ from Swiftwater, Pa., to Upper Saucon. But to complete the move, it’s holding up the town for tax breaks. Sanofi wants to pay Upper Saucon $200,000 in return for not paying taxes for the next 10 years. The move is merely a relocation of existing staff and thus would not create any new jobs. Some locals are...

More...

In its review of applications for ImClone’s Erbitux and Amgen’s Vectibix, the FDA has released a statement simultaneously frowning upon retrospective analyses of drug studies and suggesting a path for their use in new indication approvals. The statement says in part: There are multiple examples of “retrospective” or post-hoc genomic biomarker assessment or clinical disease...

More...

Abbott Labs has learned that no good deed goes unpunished, particularly in the frozen north of Canada. The company offered to study a prevalent lung disease in babies in the Nunavut region, free of charge, but the local governmet has turned the company down, according to the Nunutsiaq News. (One might say the Nunavuts are having none of it.) Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) sends nearly a...

More...

Sanofi-Aventis leases its North American headquarters in Bridgewater, N.J. Renting is fine for some, but a recent deal indicates that despite the declining real estate market, Sanofi may have been better off buying its 670,000-foot complex. The Sanofi building, owned by SL Green Realty Corp. and Gramercy Capital Corp., just sold for $230 million to another set of real estate investors, Inland...

More...

Infinity and AstraZeneca terminate agreement — In 2006, Infinity had partnered with MedImmune, gaining operating cash in return for half of the future profits on its small-molecule pipeline. When AstraZeneca acquired MedImmune in spring 2007, it inherited the partnership. AZ has a strong small-molecule program of its own, however, and Infinity acquired cash through partnerships with...

More...

Procter & Gamble’s desire to get out of the prescription pharmaceutical business either by selling its brands or managing them through their natural declines raises the question of whether this will finally kill P&G’s longtime, ill-fated interest in creating a version of Viagra for women. BNET readers will remember that P&G signed a deal back in August with Noven...

More...

UPDATE: As BNET predicted, the new Novo Nordisk logos have been suddenly removed from the web. You can still see a Google cache of the page here, and a screen grab here. Novo Nordisk’s new diabetes drug, liraglutide, isn’t approved by the FDA yet but the company is already working on a set of colorful new logos to promote the drug. You can see them here. The logos all revolve...

More...