Month: December 2013

By Ludwig Burger and Arno Schuetze FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Swiss drugmaker Novartis is ready to sell its animal health subsidiary and has opened its books to Bayer and other rivals interested in a business that could change hands for more than 3 billion euros ($4.1 billion), sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Germany's Bayer is seeking to bolster its position as a diversified life sciences company while Novartis Chief Executive Joe Jimenez and Chairman Joerg Reinhardt have said they are considering options for non-core assets that lack the scale to become world leaders. Suitors including Bayer, Eli Lilly of the United States and Germany's unlisted Boehringer are conducting due diligence assessments of the business, the financial sources said.

Genetically modified material sounds a little bit like science fiction territory, but in reality, much of what we eat on a daily basis is a genetically modified organism (GMO). Whether or not these modified foods are actually healthy is still up for debate.

“I came to the Greeks early, and I found answers in them," writer and classicist Edith Hamilton once said. The Greeks have one of the oldest cultures in the world (not to mention the first known democracy), and to this day, we turn to the wellspring of Greek wisdom for guidance on living well.

About 75 percent of corneal transplants from donors between ages 34 and 71 were successful after 10 years. The findings may lead to more donor tissue becoming available both for transplants in the U.S. and export of corneas to other countries, according to the study’s lead author. “By expanding the range of donor tissue, we’ll be able to provide more donor tissue for the vast majority of the world,” Dr. Mark Mannis said. “Over the past several decades, corneal transplantation – which is a restorative operation – has become more successful and common,” he said.