Year: 2014

By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) – GlaxoSmithKline has handed back rights to an experimental drug for Duchenne muscular dystrophy to U.S.-listed Dutch biotech firm Prosensa after it failed last year in a critical clinical trial. Both companies said on Monday that Prosensa would now have full and unencumbered rights to drisapersen, as well as other compounds at an earlier stage of development.

By Philip Pullella VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis, whom conservatives in the Roman Catholic Church have accused of not speaking out forcefully enough against abortion, on Monday called the practice "horrific". The pope made his toughest remarks to date on abortion in his yearly address to diplomats accredited to the Vatican, a speech known as his "State of the World" address. "It is horrific even to think that there are children, victims of abortion, who will never see the light of day," he said in a section of the speech about the rights of children around the world. Since his election in March, the pope, while showing no signs of changing the Church's position against abortion, has not spoken out against it as sternly or as repeatedly as his predecessors, Pope Benedict XVI and the late John Paul II. Both of those popes often delivered sermons against abortion, which the Church considers murder.

Six more people in China have been confirmed as infected with the new H7N9 strain of bird flu and one of them has died, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday. H7N9 bird flu emerged last year in China and has infected around 150 people so far there and in Taiwan and Hong Kong, killing at least 46 of them. The latest death was a 38-year-old man from China’s Fujian Province who became ill with H7N9 on January 3, was admitted to hospital on January 8 but died 2 days later. China’s state news agency Xinhua reported another death from H7N9 in the southwestern Guizhou province on Monday, but this has yet to be confirmed by the WHO.

LONDON (Reuters) – British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline said its Tafinlar cancer treatment had been given FDA breakthrough therapy designation for lung cancer, meaning the drug will be fast-tracked within the U.S. regulatory system. GSK said that Tafinlar, also known as dabrafenib, was designated an FDA breakthrough therapy on Monday following interim results from an ongoing Phase II study. Tafinlar is already approved for melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. (Reporting by Sarah Young, Editing by Paul Sandle)

A 65-year-old man infected with the H7N9 bird flu virus has died in Hong Kong, the government said on Monday, the second such death in the city. The man, the third person in Hong Kong to be diagnosed with the strain, came from the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen and had eaten poultry there, local media reported. The H7N9 strain was first reported in humans in February in mainland China, and has infected at least 139 people in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, killing more than 40.

Lexicon Pharmaceuticals Inc said its chief executive would leave and it would cut its workforce by about 45 percent, as it moves its focus away from drug discovery to completing the studies of its drugs in late-stage development. The company said Arthur Sands, CEO since 1995 and a co-founder, intends to develop a succession plan with the board. “I think Arthur Sands could have easily done the transition to commercial, but possibly the board felt they wanted someone with direct commercial experience”, Wedbush analyst Liana Moussatos said. “Most of the value of the company is wrapped up in these late-stage drugs,” Morningstar analyst Karen Andersen said.