Merck unveils integrated late-stage pipeline, including 40 Phase II and Phase III medicines of which eight are in the areas of cardiovascular or infectious disease.
Astellas Pharma is launching a hostile $3.5 B bid for OSI Pharmaceuticals, which shares the rights to lung cancer treatment Tarceva. The $52-per-share cash bid is a 40 percent premium to OSI's closing price Feb. 26.
Cell Therapeutics' Pixuvri (pixantrone dimaleate), proposed as a single agent treatment for patients with recurring or refractory (difficult to treat), aggressive Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma who have received two or more prior lines of therapy, will get an FDA advisory committee review the morning of March 22, 2010.
Forest Research's Daxas (roflumilast), proposed for the maintenance treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease associated with chronic bronchitis in patients at risk of exacerbations will get an FDA advisory committee review April 7, 2010.
Following through on its stated plan, AstraZeneca on March 1 exercised its option with Merck to regain full rights to a group of non-proton pump inhibitors that Merck had been helping to commercialize in the U.S. In exchange for a payment of $647 million, AstraZeneca will take back rights to blood pressure drugs Atacand and Plendil, Crohn’s disease drug Entocort and the investigational blood thinner, Brilinta, currently being reviewed for market approval by the FDA.
Germany's Merck KGaA has entered into a definitive $7 billion agreement to acquire US life sciences company, Millipore, for $107 per share. Millipore's products and services for pharma and biotech companies are expected to strengthen Merck KGaA's chemicals division, particularly in bioprocessing and biomanufacturing. The deal is part of the German company's bid to become a diversified health care business.
FDA's Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs advisory committee will review Bristol-Myers Squibb's belatacept injectable to be used in patients with kidney transplants to prevent rejection of a transplanted kidney March 1.
Iprivask, a recombinant antithrombotic based on the chemicals in leech saliva that was approved by FDA in 2003, is finally available in the U.S., Canyon Pharmaceuticals announced March 1.
