News

The UK government has launched two new life science clusters that will bring experts from industry, the academic community and the National Health Service together to do early-stage drug development.

AstraZeneca Plc’s new nasal spray vaccine designed to prevent seasonal flu has been given a positive opinion by the European Medicine Agency’s main scientific committee, the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Herceptin (trastuzumab) in combination with chemotherapy for HER2-positive metastatic stomach and gastroesophageal junction cancers, the drug’s manufacturer, Roche, announced.

The US Food and Drug Administration has asked manufacturers of gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists, which are used to treat men with prostate cancer, to carry warnings on their labels about the potential risk of heart disease and diabetes.

Cerenis Therapeutics SA has raised an additional €10 million in the second closing of a Series C round to support its portfolio of therapies to treat cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. This brings total funds raised in the C round to €50 million.

New safety information has been added to the label for the HIV therapy, Invirase (saquinavir), describing potentially life-threatening side effects on the heart when used with Novir (ritonavir), the US Food and Drug Administration announced.

GlaxoSmithKline Plc reported a sales decline of 2% in the third quarter of 2010 to £6.8 billion. However, excluding events such as the suspension of Avandia (rosiglitazone) in Europe and restrictions in the US, sales rose by an underlying 6%.

Novartis International AG has reported a 10% rise in net income to $2.3 billion in the 2010 third quarter on net sales of $12.6 billion. Recently launched products accounted for 20% of third-quarter sales, up from 15% a year earlier.

OncoMethylome Sciences SA, which recently re-launched itself as MDxHealth, is shifting its business strategy away from the development of biomarker services for third parties to focus on stand-alone diagnostics for the detection and prognosis of cancers.

Sygnis Pharma AG has announced a three-for-one reverse split of its shares in a move that will allow the German biotech company to resume equity financing.