Month: February 2014

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The doctors were out of ideas to help 5-year-old Charlotte Figi.

By Cris Chinaka HARARE (Reuters) – President Robert Mugabe is in Singapore for an eye operation ahead of his 90th birthday on Friday, a spokesman said, maintaining a government denial that Zimbabwe's long-serving ruler is suffering from prostate cancer. George Charamba said Mugabe, Africa's oldest president, left Harare on Monday and would be back in the country for birthday celebrations on Saturday. "This is a routine check-up, a routine cataract operation for his left eye whose date was set down more than a year ago and the president has gone out to fulfill that appointment," Charamba told Reuters on Tuesday. "He had a right eye operation a couple of years ago and he is going to have the other attended to now." A June 2008 U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks said Mugabe had prostate cancer that had spread to other organs.

By Ludwig Burger and Thorsten Severin FRANKFURT/BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany's plan to publish price discounts agreed with drugmakers poses a risk to profits in the industry, which fears the information could be used to drive down prices elsewhere. Germany, Europe's biggest market for medicines, is already one of the toughest for pharmaceutical companies, in part because statutory health insurers club together to increase their bargaining power in price negotiations with the industry. Discounts vary widely, but can be around 20 percent off drugmakers' list prices. The aim of the new law, which could come into force as soon as April, is to stop wholesalers and pharmacies from basing their margins on list prices rather than the discounted prices.

PARIS (Reuters) – Sanofi said on Tuesday that its Merial animal health division won European Commission approval for its NexGard oral treatment for flea and tick infestations in dogs. The European approval comes less than six months after the green light from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Sanofi added in a statement. “We have just started roll-out in the U.S. and can now launch in Europe and other regions in the world,” Merial Chief Executive Carsten Hellmann said. (Reporting by James Regan; Editing by John Stonestreet)

Former AIG boss Maurice "Hank" Greenberg's Starr Investment Holdings LLC said on Monday it had agreed to take over health insurance claims processor MultiPlan Inc in what is by far its biggest private equity investment to date. Financial terms were not disclosed, but a person familiar with the matter said the deal values MultiPlan at around $4.4 billion. Since its launch in 2012, all of Starr Investment Holdings' previous private equity deals have been below $1 billion. The deal underscores Greenberg's reinvention as a prominent dealmaker.