The Pharm Exec staff

Shire plans to relocate more than 500 positions to Massachusetts from its Chesterbrook, PA, site and establish Lexington, MA, as the company’s US operational headquarters.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has published its revised policy on handling declarations of interests for scientific-committee members and experts.

The pharmaceutical market is beginning to show signs of stability, with a review of 30 leading companies highlighting combined revenues of $718.7 billion in 2013, down just 0.2% from 2012, according to GlobalData.

Actavis’s agreed purchase of Allergan for around $66 billion will help grow the Dublin-based specialty pharma firm to a $22 billion healthcare company in 2015 - a “dramatic elevation”, given the $8.7 billion revenues it recorded in 2013, reports research and consulting firm GlobalData.

In response to a letter the European Medicines Agency received from the European Ombudsman on Oct. 27, 2014, the agency is clarifying its policy on commercially confidential information.

Johnson & Johnson completed the acquisition of Alios BioPharma, a privately held clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing therapies for viral diseases, for a total purchase price of approximately $1.75 billion in cash.

Israel’s pharmaceutical market value will increase from approximately $1.9 billion in 2013 to $2.34 billion, a compound annual growth rate of 2.8%, by 2020, says UK research and consulting firm GlobalData.

Christopher A. Viehbacher resigned as director of Sanofi immediately after its Board of Directors unanimously agreed to remove him as the company’s CEO yesterday. Chairman Serge Weinberg will replace Viehbacher on an interim basis.

The global non-hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) treatment market will increase in value from $5.6 billion in 2013 to $9.2 billion by 2020, according to GBI Research.

By 2020, orphan drugs are expected to account for 19 percent of the total share of prescription drug sales excluding generics, reaching $176 billion in annual sales, according to EvaluatePharma’s Orphan Drug Report 2014.

After having already sequenced thousands of cancer genes in projects together, the Yale School of Medicine and Gilead announced they will continue their partnership to find therapeutic candidates for cancer for an additional three years.

The recent termination of AbbVie’s deal to acquire Shire has “jolted the industry out of its reverie” by becoming pharma’s first major casualty of new US tax inversion legislation, says research and consulting firm GlobalData.

This month’s special issue of Pharm Exec Global Digest looks at..

A report released on this week by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), “Researching Cancer Medicines: Setbacks and Stepping Stones,”

The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) and Canada’s Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (Rx&D) have welcome finalization of the text for the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

Hemispherx Biopharma (Philadelphia, PA) has announced a set of research collaborations designed to develop “therapeutic cocktails against Ebola which may potentially overcome the emergence of drug resistance due to Ebola virus mutation”.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is reviewing available information on Ebola treatments currently under development to “facilitate evidence-based decision-making” by health authorities.

The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) reports that it has “strengthened its commitment in China”.

The Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL) treatment market in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) countries of India, Australia, China and Japan will expand from $1.1 billion in 2013 to $1.7 billion by 2020, with Japan remaining the largest contributor to growth, according to GBI Research.

Merck KGaA has announced that it has agreed to buy Sigma-Aldrich for $140 per share in cash, or a total of $17 billion.

After almost two years of discussion and analysis, the Food and Drug Administration is finalizing a proposal for collecting data from manufacturers to help measure the performance of manufacturing operations and the quality of resulting drugs and biologics

Merck’s Keytruda, recently approved in the US to treat patients with advanced melanoma that have stopped responding to other cancer therapies, will soon face strong competition from Bristol-Myers Squibb’s (BMS) Opdivo, an analyst from research and consulting firm GlobalData has reported.

The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations’ new medicines verification system will put an end to the re-sale of stolen and counterfeit drugs in the European supply chain, the organisation claims.

PEGD0814In this special Technology Issue of Pharm Exec Global Digest: Apple or Big Pharma: Who Will Lead in the Wearable Healthcare Device Space?; Google Glass - a Healthcare User’s Guide; UBISTART’s New Payout for Innovative Start-ups; and more… Click here to read the issue.

German drugmaker Merck KGaA has begun the second year of its five-year project to provide diabetes management courses for medical and pharmacy students in African Universities.

Three companies were crowned the Nordic region’s “shining examples of innovative life science companies” in Stockholm, Sweden, this week.

David Schlanger became WebMD’s CEO in August of 2013, but first joined the company in 1995, after serving as executive director, business development at Merck.

EuropaBio, the European Association for Bioindustries, has announced its “top five biotech SMEs in Europe”.

Initial human testing on a vaccine to prevent Ebola virus co-developed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has begun.

Immunovaccine Inc., a clinical stage vaccine company, announced on Aug. 25 positive results for a vaccine formulated in its DepoVax technology in an Ebola virus challenge study performed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the NIH.