Researchers from the Caboolture Hospital in Queensland, Australia found that medical skin glue can be used to hold hospital intravenous lines in place, significantly reducing the risk of infection, pain, blockage or overall failure. The team’s work was published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine. The Emergency Medicine Foundation of Australia, along with Queensland Health, funded […]
Pharmaceuticals
Trump comments send pharma, biotech shares down
(Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday took aim at drugmakers, promising in a magazine interview that “I’m going to bring down drug prices,” and shares of U.S. pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies fell. In a cover story for Time magazine, which named him its Person of the Year, Trump said that “I don’t like what […]
Aerie completes enrollment of phase III trial for intraocular pressure eye drops
Aerie Pharmaceuticals (NSDQ:AERI) said today that it completed enrollment for its 2nd phase III registration trial, Mercury 2, evaluating its Roclatan once-daily eye drops for intraocular pressure resulting from glaucoma or ocular hypertension. The company’s Roclatan solution is a fixed dose combination of its drug Rhopressa (netarsudil ophthalmic solution) and latanoprost, a widely prescribed prostaglandin […]
Mylan to cut 10% of workforce in restructuring efforts
Mylan (NSDQ:MYL) shares dropped 5% this morning after it said in regulatory filing that it expects to cut less than 10% of its global workforce as a result of its restructuring efforts. The Canonsburg, Penn.-based company has about 35,000 employees, according to Reuters, and wrote in the SEC filing that it will implement restructuring programs in specific […]
UK slaps Pfizer with record $107m fine over price hikes
The U.K.’s Competition & Markets Authority reportedly fined Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and Flynn Pharma a record amount for the companies’ massive price hikes to their unbranded versions of anti-epilepsy drug Epanutin. The British anti-trust watchdog fined Pfizer and Flynn Pharma $107 million (£84.2 million) and $6.5 million (£5.2 million), respectively. New York City-based Pfizer used to market the phenytoin sodium anti-epilepsy […]
Baxter releases infusion pump programming software
Baxter (NYSE:BAX) launched its Sigma Spectrum Safety Management System this week at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists meeting. The infusion pump system consists of an analytics software and a suite of remote professional services for cyber-security monitoring. The Deerfield, Ill.-based company said its Sigma Spectrum system was developed to minimize infusion pump programming risks, […]
Tax holiday could ignite more pharma M&A
(Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to incentivize U.S. companies to repatriate their swelling overseas cash piles could spur a new wave of dealmaking in a pharmaceutical industry seeking to buy its way into growth. For years, big U.S. drugmakers have turned to acquisitions of foreign companies to put their overseas cash to work, […]
Novo Nordisk joins Allergan in pledge to limit price hikes
Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO) president Jakob Riis said this week that the company will limit annual price hikes of its products’ list prices to single-digit percentages, joining Allergan (NYSE:AGN) CEO Brent Saunders who released a “social contract” 3 months ago with the same goal. “We hear from more and more people living with diabetes about the challenges […]
Sanofi throws hat in the ring with J&J’s in Actelion pursuit
Sanofi (NYSE:SNY) is reportedly considering a bid for Actelion Pharmaceuticals (VTX:ATLN), competing with an offer made to the Swiss biotech by Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ). Bloomberg reported that Sanofi is working with advisers to assess its options and has made its interest known informally to Actelion. The French drugmaker has not made a formal comment on the matter […]
Scilex touts data for novel lidocaine patch
Sorrento Therapeutics (NSDQ:SRNE) subsidiary Scilex Pharmaceuticals said today that its lidocaine patch, ZTlido, met primary and secondary endpoints in a pivotal study comparing the patch to Endo Pharmaceutical‘s Lidoderm patch. The data will be used to resubmit a new drug application to the FDA in mid-2017, the Malvern, Pa.-based company said. The clinical trial evaluated Scilex’s […]
