Business & Industry News Channel
Novo Nordisk has initiated its first phase 1 clinical trial with a long-acting oral GLP-1 analogue (NN9924). This milestone releases a 2 million dollar payment to Emisphere Technologies, Inc., whose proprietary Eligen® Technology is used in the formulation of NN9924. 
Following declaration of the pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in June 2009, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has been working closely with governments to respond to their changing needs as understanding of the H1N1 pandemic has increased. The company is currently in ongoing discussions with a number of governments regarding their specific pandemic planning needs, including governments who are changing their planned immunisation programmes. Novo Nordisk and the Swedish university consortium Combine have announced a research collaboration in the field of autoimmune diseases. Under the agreement, Novo Nordisk will work with scientists from the six universities that make up the Combine consortium, to develop a better understanding of how the immune system responds in patients with autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus.
Pfizer Inc. announced that the European Commission has approved Revatio® (sildenafil) solution for injection for patients who are currently prescribed oral Revatio and who are temporarily unable to take oral medicine, but are otherwise clinically and haemodynamically stable.
Boehringer Ingelheim announced the initiation of a new phase III clinical trial to evaluate one of its two late-stage oncology pipeline compounds for the treatment of patients with advanced ovarian cancer. The clinical study, called LUME-Ovar-1 trial, investigates the compound BIBF 1120, a novel oral anti-angiogenic agent*, for its efficacy and safety as first-line treatment in combination with standard chemotherapy compared to placebo in combination with standard chemotherapy in patients with advanced ovarian cancer.
AstraZeneca has entered into an agreement to acquire Novexel, a private infection research company in France, and will collaborate with Forest Laboratories on the future co-development and commercialization of two late-stage antibiotic development programmes; ceftazidime/NXL-104 (CAZ104) and ceftaroline/NXL-104 (CEF104). These antibiotic combinations utilise Novexel's novel investigational beta-lactamase inhibitor NXL-104 to overcome antibiotic-resistance and treat the increasing number of infections resistant to existing therapies. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced that the European Medicines Agency's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) has issued a positive opinion for Revolade (eltrombopag), for the oral treatment of thrombocytopenia (reduced platelet count) in adults with the blood disorder chronic immune (idiopathic) thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP).