Month: May 2013

By Jessica Toonkel NEW YORK (Reuters) – Before Optimer Pharmaceuticals Inc even put itself up for sale earlier this year, Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc offered to buy the antibiotic maker for $20 per share, or nearly $1 billion, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday. The Cubist offer, which was made last summer and rejected, according to the people, would have represented a premium from the company’s then share price of around $15 per share. The stock currently trades at more than $16 per share. Optimer’s stock closed Wednesday at $16. …

By Sharon Begley NEW YORK (Reuters) – Scientists' assertion that the advance in therapeutic cloning announced on Wednesday could not and would not pave the way to cloning a baby did little to assuage critics of the research. The research "will lead inexorably to cloning to produce a live born child," said bioethicist O. Carter Snead, professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic University in Indiana. The new study used techniques similar to those that created Dolly, the cloned sheep, in Scotland in 1996. …

NEW YORK (AP) — Global health officials say a deadly new respiratory virus related to SARS has apparently spread from patients to two health care workers in eastern Saudi Arabia.

OTTAWA (Reuters) – The Canadian province of Quebec, citing public concerns, unveiled a bill on Wednesday to impose a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, in a region rich in shale gas deposits. The province’s minority Parti Quebecois government needs opposition support to adopt the moratorium – which would last a maximum of five years. It would ban gas exploration and extraction in the Lowlands region of the St Lawrence River, site of the rich Utica and Lorraine shale gas formations. …

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — When Liz DeRouen needs any kind of health care services, from diabetes counseling to a dental cleaning, she checks into a government-funded clinic in Northern California's wine country that covers all her medical needs.

By Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) – People are living longer than ever and "dramatic" gains in life expectancy show no sign of slowing down, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday. "The global life expectancy has increased from 64 years in 1990 to 70 years in 2011. That's dramatic," Colin Mathers, coordinator for mortality and burden of disease at the WHO, said as the organization launched its annual world health statistics report. "That's an average increase in life expectancy of 8 hours a day over the last 20 years. …

By Jessica Toonkel NEW YORK (Reuters) – Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG is exploring a sale of its blood glucose meters business, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday, as the industry grapples with increased competition and reimbursement pressure. The discussions about a potential sale of the Roche unit are still in their early stages and a deal may not materialize, one of the people said. Earlier this year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced it was cutting the reimbursement for diabetes test supplies by up to 72 percent. …

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Despite a strong warning from U.S. regulators in 2007, for-profit dialysis centers still gave their kidney failure patients more of a certain anemia drug than non-profit centers in 2008, says a new study. The researchers write in JAMA Internal Medicine that their finding suggests for-profit dialysis centers may have been motivated to give more of the drug for financial gain in spite of the warning. For example, the more of the drug the centers used, the more they’d get paid. …