Month: March 2014

LONDON (Reuters) – European regulators said on Friday they had recommended approval of new pills for hepatitis C and diabetes from Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly, respectively, and an injectable drug for ulcerative colitis from Takeda. Recommendations for marketing approval by the European Medicine Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) are normally endorsed by the European Commission within a couple of months. (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; editing by Keith Weir)

Britain's Tesco has sealed a joint venture agreement with a unit of India's Tata Group that will see it invest $140 million and become the first foreign supermarket to enter the country's $500 billion pounds retail sector. Tesco said on Friday that following receipt of approval from the Indian Foreign Investment Promotion Board, it has entered into a deal with Trent Limited to form a 50:50 joint venture with the operator of the Star Bazaar retail business, Trent Hypermarket Limited (THL).

(Reuters) – Stock futures pointed to a higher opening for Canada's main stock index on Friday as investors awaited inflation and retail sales data. June futures on the S&P TSX index were up 0.28 percent at 0715 ET. CPI and retail sales figures are due at 0830 ET Banks led stocks higher on Thursday as investors bet on higher U.S. interest rates and a continuing recovery in the U.S. economy. In her first press conference as chair of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen on Wednesday indicated that the first increase in rates could come in the first half of next year. …

By Ryan Vlastelica NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures edged higher on Friday, with major indexes on track for a week of strong gains, though geopolitical concerns remained in view as the tenuous situation in Ukraine continued. The biggest East-West confrontation since the Cold War ramped up after U.S. President Barack Obama targeted some of Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest long-time political and business allies in response to Russia's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine. Russia retaliated with sanctions of its own against top U.S. politicians. In another facet of emerging market concerns, Nike Inc late Thursday said growing pressures from weaker emerging market currencies would take a big toll on its profit in the current quarter.

By Eyanir Chinea CARACAS (Reuters) – While hemophilia sufferer Sergio Tovar lay in agony for five days at a hospital in Venezuela, his friends and family scoured hospitals and pharmacies looking for life-saving drugs. Eventually a cousin, Jenny Sequeda, helped find a substitute for the protein coagulant Tovar needs for his blood condition.

The turnaround prospects for Novartis' loss-making vaccines division were given a boost on Friday as a key committee recommended including the Swiss drugmaker's meningitis B vaccine on Britain's routine vaccination programme. The Basel-based drugmaker said the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) had recommended that infants from two months of age be vaccinated with Bexsero to help protect against "MenB", a bacterial infection that can kill in 24 hours and poses the greatest risk to infants. Bexsero is seen as crucial to Novartis' vaccines business, which has struggled to catch up with the market leaders – GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi and Merck – and was the only one of the Swiss company's five divisions to report a full-year operating loss in 2013. Novartis is currently considering the future of the business as part of a portfolio review, which is also examining the drugmaker's two other sub-scale businesses, animal health and over-the-counter drugs.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The new health care law helps some people, hurts others and confuses almost everyone. Hoping to simplify things a bit, The Associated Press asked its Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus followers for their real-life questions about the program and the problems they're running into as the March 31 deadline approaches to sign up for coverage in new insurance markets.

For decades, scientists accepted that humans could detect only 10,000 scents, putting the sense of smell well below the capabilities of sight and hearing. "Our analysis shows that the human capacity for discriminating smells is much larger than anyone anticipated, said study co-author Leslie Vosshall, head of Rockefeller University's Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior.