Month: April 2013

ZURICH/LONDON (Reuters) – Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG maintained its forecast of rising sales and profit this year after growth in its mainstay cancer medicines. Demand for its flu drug Tamiflu, a smaller seller, also surged more than 80 percent following a severe flu season in the United States. The world's largest maker of cancer drugs said first-quarter sales rose 5 percent to 11.59 billion Swiss francs ($12.44 billion), compared with the average analyst forecast of 11.45 billion francs in a Reuters poll. …

PARIS (Reuters) – Sanofi said European authorities have agreed to review a marketing application for a new flu vaccine designed to combat the four strains of virus expected in the coming season. The company's Sanofi Pasteur vaccine unit currently produces the three-strain Vaxigrip flu vaccine at a facility in Val de Rueil, in France. The marketing authorization application for the quadrivalent version of Vaxigrip is intended to be presented in all countries of the world where Vaxigrip is currently commercialized, Sanofi said in a statement on Thursday. …

By Lisa Baertlein (Reuters) – KFC parent Yum Brands Inc warned that a new bird flu outbreak in China badly hit restaurant sales there this month, even as the company also reported a sharper-than-expected slide in March sales in the country caused by the lingering impact of a separate food safety scare. "Within the past week, publicity associated with Avian flu in China has had a significant, negative impact on KFC sales," the company said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday. Yum did not quantify the impact. …

By David Alexander and Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon proposed a $526.6 billion budget on Wednesday that calls for closing bases, slashing the civilian workforce and scrapping arms programs, holding out hope the Congress might still opt for an alternative to even more draconian cuts already on their way. The proposed 2014 fiscal year budget would let the Defense Department implement new spending reductions of $150 billion over the next decade rather than forcing it to carry out the $500 billion in automatic cuts known as sequestration that began on March 1. …

When Ryan Martinez, 24, had finished college he found himself back in Minnesota, where he had gone to school, in a job in public relations. Though he’d also pursued jobs in Chicago and Los Angeles, Martinez says he ultimately picked Minneapolis because of its proximity to so many lakes. “I’m an avid bicyclist and since [Minneapolis] was aptly named the number-one most bike-friendly city in the nation by Bicycling magazine a couple years back, I love it here,” explains Martinez. “I bike to and from work every day. …

By Toni Clarke WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama's proposed 2014 budget includes an increase of $3.9 billion to the health department as it prepares to implement the administration's healthcare overhaul, setting money aside for mental health, but cutting medicare. The budget asks for $1.5 billion in increased funding to help set up healthcare exchanges and educate consumers on the enrollment process, which is scheduled to begin on October 1. The exchanges are to begin providing coverage on January 1. The increase would contribute to a budget of $80. …

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s new budget offers Medicare cuts to entice Republicans into tax negotiations, while plowing ahead to cover the uninsured next year under the health care law the GOP has bitterly fought to repeal.