Month: August 2013

By Krithika Krishnamurthy and Rod Nickel (Reuters) – Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc , Canada’s biggest publicly traded drugmaker, raised its full-year adjusted earnings forecast for the second time and reported a quarterly profit, boosted by sales from its skin-care acquisitions. The company has aggressively pursued acquisitions since its 2010 takeover by Biovail Corp, which assumed the Valeant name. Valeant bought contact lens maker Bausch & Lomb Holdings Inc for $8.7 billion in the second quarter. …

How Long until We Have the Superhuman Exoskeletons from Elysium ?

By Naomi Tajitsu WELLINGTON (Reuters) – The chief executive of New Zealand's Fonterra said his future was up to the board of the world's biggest dairy exporter after human error resulted in some of its products being contaminated and shipped around the world. Theo Spierings, a Dutchman and dairy industry veteran, sought on Wednesday to reassure customers and worried parents who feed their infants with formula milk made from Fonterra's whey protein concentrate, saying all tainted stocks had been taken out of the market and there was now little or no risk to consumers. …

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – All of the notices U.S. regulators received to vouch for the safety of common food additives between 1997 and 2012 were submitted by people who had a vested interest in the outcome of those assessments, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine on Wednesday. …

Sharing Worlds, Seeing Differently

Tundi Brady was convinced her son Dexter would not live when she went into early labor.        

By Caroline Copley ZURICH (Reuters) – While a wave of stock market enthusiasm in the United States for biotech company flotations has yet to cross the Atlantic, venture capital appetite for promising European companies is returning. Biotech is hot on Wall Street, with the Nasdaq sector index up 43 percent this year, listed U.S. stocks scaling all-time highs and roughly 23 biotech companies going public. It’s a trend that is helping pique interest in exciting new science further afield. …

The ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates described several forms of cancer, referring to them as carcinos, the Greek word for crab or crayfish. So it’s a safe bet to say that cancer has been with us for a long, long time. Our approach to cancer is…        

By Kazunori Takada and Michael Martina SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) – China fined six companies, including Mead Johnson Nutrition Co, Danone and New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra, a total of $110 million following an investigation into price fixing and anti-competitive practices by foreign baby formula makers. The other three penalised were Abbott Laboratories, Dutch dairy cooperative FrieslandCampina and Hong Kong-listed Biostime International Holdings, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said on Wednesday. …

It can help smokers as they quit, but meditation may not have the same benefits for some mental illnesses as it does for addictions.

By Rajendra Jadhav MUMBAI (Reuters) – India, the world's biggest milk producer, hopes to seize on a New Zealand dairy product contamination scare to increase its exports and add market share in China and other emerging Asian countries. India's milk production is likely to rise almost 5 percent in the year to next March to 133 million tons, said R G Chandramogan, managing director of Hatsun Agro Products Ltd, one of the country's leading milk powder exporters. Traditionally, most of that production stays at home as a protein staple for a population of 1. …

BEIJING (Reuters) – China's commerce ministry said on Wednesday that it would step up inspections of all imported dairy products in the wake of a contamination scare involving ingredients for milk formula. It did not give further details. The move comes after New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra, the world's biggest dairy exporter, said human error resulted in some of its products being contaminated and shipped around the world. …