Health Care
TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) -- Antisoma PLC, the London drug developer focused on cancer, completed enrolling patients in a Phase III trial of AS1413, or amonafide L-malate, to treat acute myeloid leukemia. The trial should generate data in first-half 2011, and in a Wednesday statement, Antisoma said it would file for marketing clearances if the results prove positive. More than 420 patients from 22 countries are participating. The trial will compare a combination of AS1413 and cytarabine with standard therapy of daunorubicin and cytarabine, Antisoma said. The study's key endpoint: the "rate of complete remission with or without recovery of normal blood counts," the company said.
On a bleak day for Wall Street, shares of ResCare Inc, a little-known provider of in-home care for the elderly, jump more than 6% on news it would be purchased by a Canadian concern.
The drugstore giant and pharmaceutical provider will swap assets in a deal designed to fill gaps in each other's businesses, but the transaction did little to jolt either company's shares.
Health Care Headlines
TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) -- Roche, the Basel health-care giant, affirmed its full-year outlook and, in view of "mounting pressures to curb health-care costs -- plans cost cuts to take effect in 2011 and 2012. In a Friday statement, Roche said it would specify details of the plan and its effect on the workforce later this year. "We have launched this initiative from a position of strength," Chief Executive Severin Schwan said in the statement. The company is "only marginally affected by patent expiries" and despite "recent setbacks, we have one of the strongest R&D product pipelines in the industry." All areas of Roche "will review and analyze their respective structures and processes" as part of the plan, Roche said.
1:29 a.m. Sept. 3, 2010Genzyme formally rejects a buyout offer of $69 a share made by French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi-Aventis, saying it undervalues the biotechnology company.
2:48 p.m. Aug. 30, 2010TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) -- Forest Laboratories Inc. and Gedeon Richter PLC said Monday that in a Phase II study of cariprazine, a potential treatment for bipolar depression, the overall result for patients taking the drug was not statistically different from that of the patients taking placebo. In higher doses, however, the antipsychotic drug did show "evidence of a clinically relevant treatment effect," the drugmakers, based respectively in New York and Budapest, said. The primary endpoint was the scores on the Montgomery Asberg Depression Rating Scale, they said. The companies are mulling whether to do another Phase II study of the drug to examine a wider range of doses. Meantime, the drug is in Phase III trials for, separately, schizophrenia and bipolar mania.
4:59 a.m. Aug. 30, 2010TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) -- Sanofi-Aventis SA , the Paris health-care group, said Monday that teriflunomide, a once-daily treatment taken by mouth that's in trials to treat relapsing multiple sclerosis, met its primary endpoint in a Phase III trial. The drug "significantly reduced" the annualized relapse rate of the disease, at 2 years, versus placebo, SNY said. Both 7mg and 14mg doses of teriflunomide were well tolerated, the company said. The trial is the first within an effort to assess the drug as a stand-alone therapy, Sanofi-Aventis said.
1:34 a.m. Aug. 30, 2010French drug maker Sanofi-Aventis SA has offered to buy U.S. biotechnology company Genzyme Corp. for $18.5 billion, or $69 per share.
3:37 p.m. Aug. 29, 2010Shares of stem-cell researchers regain ground, after being pushed down earlier in the week on investor concerns that a court ruling against the federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research would negatively impact the fledgling sector.
4:13 p.m. Aug. 26, 2010
Warren Buffett, George Soros, Carl Icahn are buying stocks and that's a bullish sign, says James Altucher, Wealth Adviser contributor. There's plenty to learn from their picks, Altucher explains to Dow Jones' Veronica Dagher.
Wall Street is betting that three new experimental diet drugs could be huge commercial hits in a super-sizing America, but there are questiomns about how comfortable doctors would be prescribing the medications.
11:48 a.m. Aug. 25, 2010Video
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