Pharma News this week

Glaxo: more big cuts, and the U.S. HQ needle pointing south – GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced that it will reduce its sales personnel by 12% to 7,500 down from 8,500. The company will slash 1,800 jobs resulting in a total of 1,000 layoffs. Some positions have already been eliminated while other personnel will be reassigned to new areas. The company is also consolidating operations and moving personnel from its Philadelphia facility to Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, where it employs about 5,000 people…more

Gilead gets a boost from new HIV treatment guidelines – The DHHS named Gilead’s Truvada, a combination of the company’s HIV treatments Emtriva and Viread, the lone preferred regimen for previously untreated HIV patients. Gilead’s shares added 3.2% to $47.31 in regular trading…more

Genzyme pours serious cash into Osiris – Genzyme Corp. will pay Osiris Therapeutics Inc. as much as $1.38 billion to develop therapies that use stem cells to treat blood cancers, inflammation and joint damage. ..more

Amylin’s Byetta LAR gets extended delay for extended release – Shares of Amylin Pharmaceuticals have collapsed after it emerged that US regulators have rejected data for a once-weekly version of its diabetes drug Byetta…more

UCB gets OAB drug approval – UCB announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the anti-muscarinic agent Toviaz® (fesoterodine fumarate) extended-release tablets for the treatment of overactive bladder (OAB) with symptoms of urge urinary incontinence, urgency, and urinary frequency…more

What does Jupiter have to do with cholesterol treatments? A lot!

But will Winnie be used to sell obesity treatments? Pooh characters as Seroquel sales aids? Hmmm…

Cephalon’s Treanda gets another indication – on Friday received a second approval from the Food and Drug Administration for its cancer drug Treanda, this time as a treatment for patients with non-Hodgkins lymphoma (NHL)…more

CV Therapeutics’ Ranexa gets a first-line approval – CV Therapeutics, Inc. announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new, first line indication for Ranexa® (ranolazine extended-release tablets) for the treatment of chronic angina. The new labeling also provides information showing that Ranexa reduced arrhythmias including ventricular arrhythmias, new onset atrial fibrillation and a potentially dangerous slow heartbeat known as bradycardia in patients with coronary artery disease. In addition, the new labeling states that Ranexa reduces hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) in patients with diabetes…more

Promising experimental Hep-C treatment in the Schering pipeline – results being reported.

Obesity drugs: everybody bails out – For those of you hoping that America’s obesity crisis could be solved with a pill, think again. Pfizer announced late Wednesday that it is scrapping its anti-fat drug, the as-yet unnamed “CP-945,598,” for essentially political reasons. Sanofi-Aventis today also announced that it was ending its trials on Acomplia/Zimulti, an obesity pill that was approved and then yanked in Europe. And Merck a couple of weeks ago pulled its fat pill taranabant, from its pipeline…more

Why did J&J consolidate its drug advertising biz between 2 big agency holding companies?

Big Pharma’s loss may be Little Pharma’s gain - as big drugmakers continue to trim jobs, smaller biopharmaceutical makers and specialty pharma are benefiting from the downsizing, according to David Poling, director of state business operations at Aerotek, a staffing firm…more

The 10 weirdest drug stories of the month.

First glimpse of the secrets of the cancer genome. Fascinating.

If you’re not up on the latest pharma/legal issue called pre-emption, you need to be. Go here for the latest.

Want even more news? Chris Truelove over at Pharmalive has a big roundup this week – lots of interesting tidbits and links..

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