Month: December 2013

(Reuters) – OncoMed Pharmaceuticals Inc said Celgene Corp would develop and market six of its anti-cancer stem cell experimental drugs for an upfront payment of $155 million. OncoMed’s stock rose 68 percent to $23.50 in premarket trading on Tuesday. OncoMed is eligible to receive up to $3 billion in option and milestone payments if Celgene’s option to license worldwide rights is exercised and approved, the companies said in a statement. Celgene will also buy about $22.25 million of OncoMed’s common stock for $15.13 per share, an 8 percent premium to OncoMed’s closing on Monday.

"Fiber and protein can help," says Barbara Rolls, author of The Ultimate Volumetrics Diet. Getting more bang for your bite matters, too: Low-energy-density foods, …

By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations said on Tuesday it had delivered food to 3.4 million people in Syria in November, falling short again of its monthly target of 4 million as heavy fighting kept it from reaching hungry people in contested areas. As winter bites, the number of children in Syria deemed vulnerable and in need of assistance has nearly quadrupled from a year ago to 4.3 million, the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said. U.N. aid chief Valerie Amos was to brief the Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Syria later on Tuesday amid deep concerns about lack of access to besieged civilians. The World Food Programme (WFP) said it had reached eight communities in November that had been cut off for months, mainly in rural Homs and Deraa, but that it was gravely concerned about many others.

By Teis Jensen COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Denmark's Novo Nordisk has a stronger development pipeline of new drug candidates than it has ever had before, and thinks it can keep delivering the strong sales growth of the past decade, its chief executive said on Tuesday. Novo has no long-term sales target, but it has a target for its operating profit to grow by 15 percent per year. "I believe we have never had as strong a pipeline as we have right now," chief executive Lars Rebien Sorensen said at the company's capital markets day in Hillerod near Copenhagen. In the third quarter Novo Nordisk had a market share of 27 percent of the global diabetes care market, which is worth around $42 billion per year.

Tips for how to eat during the holidays without gaining weight.        

Health News Wires announces the availability of the One Day Diet Cheat Sheets and Meal Plan report. The One Day Diet outlines a complete step-by-step fat …

At least 100 Zimbabwean prisoners have died of hunger and disease this year because the cash-strapped government can only afford one meal a day for inmates, a senior official was quoted as saying on Tuesday. Prison farms were not getting enough seed and fertiliser from the government to produce sufficient food to feed inmates, the NewsDay newspaper quoted Deputy Commissioner for Prisons Aggrey Machingauta as telling a parliamentary committee. The privately owned newspaper also quoted the chief secretary of the justice ministry, Virginia Mabhiza, as telling the committee Zimbabwe's 46 prisons required $1 million a month to run properly. Zimbabwe is struggling to right its economy after a decade-long economic crisis to 2009, which critics blame on mismanagement by veteran President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.

By Leslie Gevirtz NEW YORK (Reuters) – Many Americans this week will toast the 80th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition, a 14-year ban on the sale and production of alcoholic beverages that turned booze-smuggling thugs into celebrities and otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals. While the cocktail has been around since early 19th century, the combinations of spirits, sugars, water and bitters really started pouring into shakers during Prohibition. In the 1920s, there were 15,000 speakeasies in Detroit, “Great Gatsby” author F. Scott Fitzgerald favored Gin Rickeys and politicians and the famous hid out at New York’s “21 Club” with its secret wine cellar and disappearing bar. “The whole Prohibition cocktail thing was to cover up the poor quality of the alcohol,” said John McCarthy, a bartender at New York’s Bathtub Gin lounge.