Once high on Pharmos Corp.'s cannabinoid-receptor drug for brain injury, investors came down hard following news that the compound failed in a pivotal Phase III trial.(BioWorld International)

"Happy new year" might not be the way, exactly, to describe the sort of 2005 that oncologists - not to mention their patients - might expect as a result of changes wrought by the Medicare Modernization Act. (BioWorld Financial Watch)

With AstraZeneca plc's failure of Iressa in non-small-cell lung cancer, the winners were Genentech Inc. and partner OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc. and their drug Tarceva - also an epidermal growth factor inhibitor - which was approved for the indication last month. (BioWorld Today)

As expected, Amgen Inc. won FDA approval of Kepivance (palifermin), its fast-track keratinocyte growth factor for mucositis in chemotherapy patients with blood cancers who get bone marrow transplants. (BioWorld Today)