Month: January 2014

By Ransdell Pierson SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – French drugmaker Sanofi will buy a 12 percent stake in Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc for $700 million and deepen their partnership to develop drugs for rare genetic diseases. The companies said in a joint statement on Monday that Sanofi would buy Alnylam shares for about $80 each, representing a 27 percent premium compared to their average price over the past 30 days. The partnership between Sanofi and Alnylam began in 2012, the year after Sanofi jumped into the business of treating rare genetic diseases by paying more than $20 billion for U.S. biotechnology company Genzyme, a leader in the field. The Genzyme drugs include blockbuster treatments such as Fabrazyme for a rare condition called Fabry disease and Cerezyme for Gaucher disease.

By Patrick Temple-West WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration on Tuesday will fight before the Supreme Court to keep a defunct retailer from potentially triggering a wave of tax refund claims that could drain $1 billion from major U.S. social programs. In oral arguments before the high court, the Obama administration will ask the justices to overturn an appeals court ruling in favor of issuing a tax refund to Quality Stores Inc, a rural retailer that declared bankruptcy in 2001. Though the tax refund at issue in this case is small – about $1 million – the Obama administration has warned in court filings that the Internal Revenue Service could owe more than $1 billion in thousands of tax refund claims to individuals and businesses if the appeals court ruling is upheld.

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) – A brief course of brain exercises helped older adults hold on to improvements in reasoning skills and processing speed for 10 years after the course ended, according to results from the largest study ever done on cognitive training. Older adults who underwent a brief course of brain exercises saw improvements in reasoning skills and processing speed that could be detected as long as 10 years after the course ended, according to results from the largest study ever on cognitive training. The federally sponsored trial of almost 3,000 older adults, called the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly study, or ACTIVE, looked at how three brain training programs – focusing on processing speed, memory and reasoning ability – affected cognitively normal adults as they aged.

Sinopharm Group Co Ltd, China’s largest pharmaceutical distributor, said its former vice president has been detained as part of a probe into alleged corruption, the latest industry official to come under scrutiny. Shi Jinming was detained on Friday by Shanghai authorities, while Xu Yizhong, a former general manager of a wholly owned subsidiary, was also under investigation, Sinopharm said in a statement late on Sunday. Sinopharm said the case had no material impact on its operations and it had set up a special committee to examine and review its internal control system. The most high-profile investigation involved British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline Plc, significantly denting the firm’s China sales and spooking doctors more widely to reduce interaction with sales teams.

By Ann Moore CHARLESTON, West Virginia (Reuters) – Restaurants and shops began reopening on Sunday in parts of West Virginia where the water supply was poisoned by a chemical spill, although up to 300,000 people spent a fourth day unable to use tap water for anything besides flushing toilets. State government officials, the utility company West Virginia American Water and the National Guard continued to test the water supply after as much as 7,500 gallons (28,000 liters) of an industrial chemical leaked into the Elk River on Thursday. It could still be several days before people in nine counties and Charleston, the state capital and largest city, can once again use the water from their faucets for drinking, cooking and bathing.

The temperature outside governs most people’s response to climate change. David Biello reports