As one of the latest efforts to stir the stagnated migraine market - Pozen Inc.'s combination therapy Trexima, which pairs sumatriptan with the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug naproxen - continues to have trouble, Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s Frova (frovatriptan) might be able to make headway. But it's too early to put a lot of money on that bet. (BioWorld Financial Watch)
The bound-to-happen changes disclosed Wednesday by Amgen Inc. failed to shock Wall Street, and eyes now have turned to the firm's date with an FDA panel on erythropoietin stimulating agents (ESAs) and a court fight over patents with F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. - even as hopes remain in some quarters that the feds might modify their reimbursement guidelines for anemia drugs. (BioWorld Today)
After the market closed Wednesday, Amgen Inc. - faced with label changes to include warnings and lowered reimbursement for two of its major products - made public its plan to reduce staff by 12 percent to 14 percent, or as many as 2,600 jobs, gaining a pre-tax savings of $1 billion to $1.3 billion in 2008. (BioWorld Today)
Icagen Inc.'s potential $1 billion-plus deal with Pfizer Inc. to develop sodium ion channel modulators for pain took the hurt out of a Phase III setback with senicapoc for sickle cell disease and the loss of two other pharma partners recently. (BioWorld Today)
July's death of a patient in Targeted Genetics Inc.'s halted Phase I/II trial of the arthritis drug tgAAC94 shone the spotlight - unfavorably, again - on gene therapy, dragging all involved companies out for inspection. And it gave many investors an excuse to talk about China, as if many in biotech weren't already. (BioWorld Financial Watch)
Genzyme Corp.'s longstanding legal dispute with some shareholders over the buyback of Genzyme Biosurgery stock in 2003 will end not with a figurative bang but with a $64 million whimper, if a judge approves an agreement made between the parties. (BioWorld Today)
Merck & Co. Inc.'s decision to back away from the Phase II-stage, N-type calcium channel blocker NMED-160 for pain leaves intact its collaboration with privately held Neuromed Pharmaceuticals Inc., and the companies plan to keep working in the same pathway to find another compound. (BioWorld Today)
