News

GlaxoSmithKline Plc is raising its quarterly dividend by 7% and forecasting an improvement in its profit margin in 2012 following a multi-year restructuring programme and a rebalancing of its sales profile.

After raising £16.6 million net of expenses in March, E-Therapeutics Plc is preparing to bring three drug candidates into the clinic in 2012, and to advance a fourth to a Phase 2b study. The update was issued with the company’s annual results on 25 July.

Pharming Group NV of the Netherlands has raised €3.2 million in a private placement of its shares with US specialist investors, extending its cash runway into the second quarter of 2012. The company’s lead product is a treatment for angioedema.

The European Medicines Agency has agreed to a recall of Vimpat (lacosamide), a medicine used to treat epilepsy because of a quality defect in some batches. No adverse reactions have been reported. The developer, UCB SA, proposed the recall.

The European Medicines Agency is recommending approval of a new medicine for chronic hepatitis C in adults, Incivo (telaprevir). The developer is Janssen Pharmaceutical and the drug was approved by the FDA in May.

The European Medicines Agency is recommending that pioglitazone-containing medicines for diabetes, including Actos, carry a warning of a small increased risk of bladder cancer. However it said the benefit-risk of the drugs remains positive.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company has announced plans to acquire privately-held Amira Pharmaceuticals Inc of San Diego, California, paying $325 million upfront, in order to expand its portfolio into potential treatments for fibrotic diseases.

The Roche group is raising its outlook for core earnings per share in 2011 despite results for the first half of the year showing that sales, expressed in local currencies, were flat. The company expects that improvements in productivity, however, will enable it to deliver a per-share earnings increase of 10% for the year. In April, it forecast an increase in the high single-digit range.

Actelion Ltd reported a decline in revenue and a loss for the first six months of 2011 as the result of a damages award and a 12% decline in the Swiss franc value of dollar sales over the period.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Brilinta (ticagrelor), an oral antiplatelet medicine, to reduce the rate of cardiovascular death and heart attack in adult patients with acute coronary syndrome. The developer is AstraZeneca Plc.