Month: April 2014

Europe’s drug regulator said on Wednesday an inspection of Indian generic drugmaker Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd’s Dewas plant in India is planned for June, amid concerns about its production processes after a spate of regulatory sanctions. Ranbaxy, which owner Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo Ltd agreed to sell it to India’s Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd for $3.2 billion on Monday, suspended production at the Dewas plant in February to examine processes. The company’s voluntary suspension at Dewas and another plant in Toansa in the northern Punjab state in February, came after a spate of sanctions against it by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) due to poor manufacturing processes.

By Himank Sharma and Zeba Siddiqui MUMBAI (Reuters) – India's market regulator will ask Ranbaxy Laboratories and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries for more information about their planned $3.2 billion merger and seek trading data from stock exchanges after shares in Ranbaxy surged in the run-up to the deal, a senior source at the regulator said on Wednesday. Ranbaxy shares jumped 24 percent while trading volume tripled in the three sessions ahead of Monday's announcement that Sun Pharma would buy it in what would be the biggest drug sector deal in the Asia-Pacific region this year. We will ask stock exchanges on details of buy and sell trades in both Ranbaxy and Sun shares," said the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) source, who declined to be identified because he is not authorized to speak with the media on the matter.

ROME (AP) — Italy’s constitutional court has struck down a ban on egg or sperm donation for infertile couples.

By Sumeet Chatterjee and Zeba Siddiqui MUMBAI (Reuters) – India's Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd plans to begin phasing out sales of generic drugs branded as Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd products in the United States, after completing a $3.2 billion takeover of its loss-making rival by the year end, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. Ranbaxy drugs sold in the United States will be gradually rebranded as Sun Pharma treatments as part of a strategy to turn around the company being bought from Japan's Daiichi Sankyo Ltd. The brand is likely to continue to be present in other markets, the sources said. Uday Baldota, Sun Pharma's senior vice president of finance and accounts, didn't comment directly when asked whether Sun Pharma will phase out Ranbaxy-branded products in the United States. "Overall Ranbaxy brand has a value," he said.

Family: “World is a better place because you were in it. Our hearts are broken.”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi health authorities said Wednesday that 11 people in the western city of Jiddah have contracted the Middle East respiratory syndrome, resulting in two recent deaths and prompting officials to temporarily shutter the emergency unit at one of the city’s biggest hospitals.