GlaxoSmithKline Plc has become the first Big Pharma company to eliminate individual targets for its sales executives, an incentive that critics say has distorted prescribing. It has also started a process to stop direct payments to doctors to attend medical conferences.
Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc said that top-line results from a Phase 3 trial of its antibiotic candidate ceftolozane/tazobactam in complicated intra-abdominal infections met its primary endpoint of statistical non-inferiority compared with meropenem.
AmpliPhi BioSciences Corp, which is developing new antibacterial therapies, has reached an agreement with funders to raise $18 million in a private share placement to support development of therapies that target Gram-negative bacterial infections.
The US Food and Drug Administration is tightening the oversight of antibiotics for the treatment of diseases in animals, and is calling on animal pharmaceutical companies to voluntarily stop their use as growth enhancers.
The proposed takeover of Elan Corporation Plc by Perrigo Company, a large US wholesaler of healthcare products and generic prescription drugs, has been approved by the Irish High Court paving the way for the completion of the deal on 18 December.
H. Lundbeck A/S and Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co Ltd have decided to advance an anti-amyloid beta vaccine, currently in preclinical development, for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. The focus is on early inhibition of amyloid beta.
A new £3 million research project aimed at identifying targets for the development of drugs against dementia has been launched by the charity, Alzheimer’s Research UK; the technology transfer company, MRC Technology; and Eisai Co, Ltd and Eli Lilly and Company.
A more than decade-long Swedish project aimed at mapping the human proteome has reached an important milestone with the release of data for more than 80% of the protein-coding genes in the human body, and RNA expression data for more than 90% of the genes.
A candidate proteasome inhibitor developed by scientists at the Karolinska Institutet (KI) and Vivolux AB is set to enter the clinic next year following promising preclinical data in animal models of multiple myeloma. The data are described in an article in Blood.
Oxford BioTherapeutics Ltd and its Italian partner the Menarini Group, have announced the start of preparations for a human trial of the first of their five prospective antibody-based therapies for cancer. The target indication is acute myeloid leukaemia (AML).