Cellnovo Ltd of the UK, the developer of a diabetes pump management system, has raised £30 million in a Series B financing round from a group of international investors led by Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners of Paris, France.
Eli Lilly and Company has entered into a three-year research agreement with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation to explore a new strategy for regenerating beta cells in people with Type 1 diabetes.
Merck & Co Inc has ended its multi-year drug-target discovery alliances with Galápagos NV of Belgium citing changes in its corporate strategy. It will pay Galápagos €12 million for work completed in 2010.
Phase 3 trial results of a new antibiotic for infections from C. difficile have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The antibiotic, fidaxomicin, showed lower recurrence rates and better cure rates compared with vancomycin.
Following a decline in 2010 net profit of 67%, GlaxoSmithKline Plc acted to support shareholder confidence by raising its dividend by 7% for the year and to launching a new long-term share repurchase programme that could see it buy back between £1 and 2 billion worth of its shares in 2011.
Group sales at Roche were flat in 2010 reflecting a decline in influenza product sales and the impact of lower US and European healthcare spending. Restructuring measures cost the company CHF 1.3 billion (€1 billion) last year.
Novo Nordisk A/S’s comprehensive diabetes franchise continued to flourish in 2010 with sales of diabetes products rising by 21.9% to DKK 45,710 million (€6,132 million), the company announced.
Eli Lilly Company and Bristol-Myers Squibb have announced the stopping of enrollment in one of their two global Phase 3 studies of necitumumab, an investigational treatment for first-line advanced non-small cell lung cancer.
The European Union has allocated €3.3 million to a gene therapy consortium which is working on a possible treatment for acute intermittent porphyria (AIP), a metabolic disorder. A treatment has been developed by Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics (AMT).
Pfizer Inc has announced plans to exit from research into allergy and respiratory medicines and to close its site in Sandwich UK which houses these activities. The decision is expected to result in the loss of more than 2,000 jobs.