Two US professional heart organisations have issued new guidance for the use of statins for heart disease, recommending that treatment focuses on healthy lifestyle and statins when necessary rather than routine use of low-dose statins to achieve cholesterol targets.
Sales of ChondroCelect, an autologous cell therapy for the repair of cartilage defects in the knee, increased by 21% to €3.1 million in the first nine months of 2013 from a year earlier, the developer, TiGenix NV reported.
Immatics Biotechnologies GmbH has secured a major research and development collaboration with Roche that will enable it to advance a promising therapeutic vaccine for gastric cancer into the clinic, and explore new therapies for prostate and non-small cell lung cancers.
Evotec AG reported a 7% gain in third quarter revenue to €23.6 million but over nine months revenue declined by 6% to €60.3 million, reflecting the termination of the company’s chemistry operations in India.
The first of two Phase 3 studies of a new treatment for chronic coronary heart disease, darapladib, has failed to meet its primary endpoint, GlaxoSmithKline Plc said. The endpoint was time to first occurrence of any major adverse cardiovascular event.
Novartis is to sell its blood transfusion diagnostics unit, acquired in 2006 as part of Chiron Corp, to the Spain-based company Grifols SA for $1.7 billion. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first half of 2014.
Shire Plc has taken steps to strengthen its portfolio of drugs for rare diseases with the acquisition of the Nasdaq-listed ViroPharma Inc of the US which has a marketed product for the prophylactic treatment of hereditary angioedema (HAE). The deal is valued at $4.2 billion.
The European Medicines Agency has updated a regulatory guideline on antibiotic medicine development with a view to encouraging work on new agents that target multidrug resistance where patients have limited or no remaining treatment options.
Evotec AG has joined forces with one of the new Johnson & Johnson Inc innovation centres to identify targets for Alzheimer’s disease with a view to discovering and developing potential therapies that could affect early-stage disease.
MorphoSys AG secured a profit of €16.9 million in the first nine months of 2013 compared with a year-earlier loss of €1.2 million on revenue of €63.6 million, up by 80% from a year earlier – the result of two transformative deals announced in June.