Month: May 2013

By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent LONDON (Reuters) – For a pathogen with such a short history, the mysterious new virus killing people in the Middle East and Europe has already had an amazing array of names. It first surfaced last year as "human betacoronavirus 2c EMC", but the suffixes "2c England-Qatar, "2C Jordan-N3", "England 1" have also appeared and many scientists have resorted to "novel coronavirus" – new crown-shaped virus – instead. …

(Reuters) – Pfizer Inc said on Wednesday it will spin off its majority stake in animal health business Zoetis Inc to shareholders by allowing them to swap Pfizer stock for Zoetis stock at a 7 percent discount. Pfizer, the largest drugmaker, sold Zoetis shares in an initial public offering in February that raised $2.2 billion. Pfizer retained an 80 percent stake in Zoetis after the IPO and now plans to unwind that, starting with this offer. The offer would allow shareholders to exchange $100 worth of Pfizer stock for $107.52 worth of Zoetis stock. …

LONDON (Reuters) – The U.S. government has signed an antibiotics development deal worth up to $200 million with GlaxoSmithKline to tackle the dual threats of drug resistance and bioterrorism. The collaboration, the first of its kind between Washington and a drug company, will allow funding to move around GSK's antibiotics portfolio rather than focusing on a single drug candidate. …

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Doctors in Poland say they have performed an urgent total face transplant on a 33-year-old man whose face was torn off in an accident which also crushed his jaws.

By Alex Dobuzinskis LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Voters strongly supported a ballot measure to sharply curtail the number of medical marijuana dispensaries permitted to operate in Los Angeles while boosting taxes on the sale of pot for health reasons, election returns early on Wednesday showed. The proposal appeared headed for passage. Returns showed 63 percent of voters supporting it compared with 37 percent opposed, after tabulation of more than 40 percent of ballots cast at polling stations on Tuesday, and all of the mail-in ballots received as of last Friday. …

By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) – A new wave of medicines that tap the power of the immune system to fight cancer could become the biggest drug class in history, with potential sales of $35 billion a year. That bullish sales forecast by analysts at U.S. bank Citigroup highlights the growing excitement surrounding so-called immunotherapy after positive results from clinical trials conducted by companies such as Bristol-Myers Squibb and Roche Holding. …

NEW YORK (AP) — The American Cancer Society — one of the nation's best known and influential health advocacy groups — is 100 years old this week.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The mayor of Portland, Ore., has conceded defeat in an effort to add fluoride to the city’s drinking water.

(Reuters) – Merck & Co Inc said it has entered into a $5 billion share repurchase agreement with Goldman Sachs Group Inc, as the drug giant looks to prop up shareholder value in face of stiff competition from makers of less-costly generics. Under the accelerated share repurchase agreement (ASR), Merck has agreed to repurchase about 99.5 million shares from Goldman Sachs based on current market prices. …