Year: 2014

Blood tests have shown that a 12-year-old girl in Ghana who died of viral fever with bleeding did not have Ebola, Health Minister Sherry Ayittey said on Monday. The girl was the first suspected case in Ghana of Ebola, which has killed more than 90 people in Guinea and Liberia. Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres has warned of an unprecedented epidemic in an impoverished region with weak health services. Samples from the girl, who has not been identified, were brought to the capital Accra from the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, Ghana’s second-largest city.

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(Reuters) – MannKind Corp said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration extended the review date of its inhaled insulin treatment by three months, sending the company's shares down as much as 22 percent before the bell. The news comes less than a week after an advisory panel to the FDA recommended approving the treatment, Afrezza, but said longer-term studies would be required to gauge the risk of lung cancer and other potential side-effects. MannKind said on Monday the new review date of July 15 was set to give the FDA time to fully review information it had submitted. Analysts had expected the FDA to delay its decision given the concerns about Afrezza's safety and efficacy.

By John Irish PARIS (Reuters) – Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has recovered strongly enough from a stroke to govern and will push economic reforms, including loosening restrictions on foreign investors if re-elected this month, campaign spokesman Amara Benyounes said. Benyounes, who is also Industry and Investment Minister, was campaigning in Paris on Sunday to win support among Algeria's largest disapora ahead of April 17 presidential polls. Speaking to Reuters Benyounes dismissed suggestions 77-year-old Bouteflika, who has remained mostly out of the public eye since returning from France after suffering a stroke, would not be fit to rule the country. "He will manage the country with his head not his feet and his head is working very well," Benyounes said.

By Chang-Ran Kim and Zeba Siddiqui TOKYO/MUMBAI (Reuters) – India's Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd has agreed to buy generic drugmaker Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd for $3.2 billion, betting it can fix factory quality glitches that plagued the current owner, Japan's Daiichi Sankyo Co , and got Ranbaxy India-made drugs barred from the United States. For Daiichi Sankyo, Japan's fourth-biggest drugmaker by revenue, the deal marks a significant retreat and highlights the lingering quality problems facing India's drug industry. The value of the Japanese firm's investments in the country has been halved since it bought control of Ranbaxy in 2008. The deal comes against the backdrop of a slew of sanctions against Ranbaxy by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) due to concerns about manufacturing processes at its India plants.

India’s Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd Managing Director Dilip Shanghvi said he expects Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd to become profitable in the short term. Sun said it will buy Ranbaxy in a $3.2 billion all-share deal, creating the world’s fifth-largest generic drug maker from two firms struggling with quality issues in the lucrative United States market. Sun plans to focus on remediation of compliance issues that have resulted in bans at multiple Ranbaxy plants, Shanghvi told analysts on a conference call. Ranbaxy’s underlying business has “robust growth,” and profitability potential, based on which the price Sun is paying for the deal is “justified,” Shanghvi said.

By Nandita Bose MUMBAI (Reuters) – The political party expected to lead India’s next government confirmed on Monday it would ban foreign supermarkets from the $500 billion retail sector, a move that would deal a fresh setback to global chains such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has in recent years opposed investment by foreign firms into multi-brand retail, made the announcement in its election manifesto, which it unveiled in New Delhi earlier. If elected, the BJP said it would welcome foreign direct investment in all sectors that create local jobs, except for supermarkets. It is not clear, however, whether the BJP, which is forecast to win the most parliamentary seats in a five-week election that started on Monday, would follow through on the ban.

Roche has bought the rights to an experimental drug from Spain's Oryzon Genomics that can switch on genes to block cancer growth, as the Swiss drugmaker looks to maintain its dominance in the lucrative field of oncology. The world's largest maker of cancer drugs will pay Barcelona-based Oryzon $21 million in upfront and near-term milestone payments and could pay out more than $500 million if the company meets other goals, it said in a statement on Monday. The deal will give Roche rights to Oryzon's experimental drug ORY-1001 which was granted orphan drug status by European health regulators last year and is currently in early-stage clinical testing for acute myeloid leukaemia. Roche will also pay up to mid-double digit percentage royalties if the drug makes it to market.

Commentary: insurer’s talk of rate increases may boomerang.

By Dorene Internicola NEW YORK (Reuters) – Ballet-inspired group fitness classes have leapt beyond the traditional wall-mounted barre to include tools like bungee cords and swishy balls for a full-body workout, according to fitness experts. The classes, often paired with Pilates, aim to channel the inner ballerina, even in non-dancers. BungeeBallet, created by former New York City Ballet dancer Rachel Piskin, is a group class at ChaiseFitness studio in New York City that puts a fitness spin on ballet moves. Instead of the traditional ballet barre, the 45-minute class relies on an overhead bungee system that Piskin said sculpts the arms and challenges the core of her mostly female clientele.

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By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) – Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, already facing corruption accusations in China, is now investigating allegations of bribery in Iraq, the British company said on Sunday. The latest controversy centers on claims that the company hired government-employed physicians and pharmacists in Iraq as paid sales representatives to improperly boost use of its products. "We are investigating allegations of improper conduct in our Iraq business. We have zero tolerance for unethical or illegal behavior," a company spokesman said.