Aha, it's AHA weekend. No mickey mousing around down there in FLA, time for some big drugs to put up some big data. Or something. Hope you had a nice weekened.While you were refusing to run the football (looking at you Andy Reid...) ...
- AHA: The big weekend news was more bad news for Merck's Zetia/Vytorin franchise, as Abbott's Niaspan wins the weekend. Forbes' take here, Reuters here.
- AHA: Brilinta beats Plavix in reducing further serious cardiac events post heart attack. An analysis of the toughest patients in the massive PLATO study adds to Brilinta's advantage, reports Reuters.
- AHA: The Medicines Co says cangrelor is not dead yet. A full analysis of the Phase III CHAMPION study (which did not hit its clinical endpoints) suggests "cangrelor significantly reduced the composite endpoint of death, Q-wave myocardial infarction (MI) and IDR," says a release.
- NYT: Drug prices keep going up! You don't say ...
- BMS: Mead Johnson shares have risen nearly 90% since Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. IPO'd its nutritionals business earlier this year, and now BMS is using that boost to finance a share buy back. That February 2009 IPO let BMS focus on its core biopharma business while consolidating MJ's top and bottom line--a nice stabilizer for the company. But this weekend BMS said it would spin off the company (reports Bloomberg), exchanging Mead shares for tendered BMS shares--and boosting EPS in the process. More on this later!
- POC: Addex Pharma's lead allosteric modulator ADX10059 passes a big test, hitting all primary and secondary endpoints in a Phase IIb monotherapy trial in GERD patients. A second trial, as add-on to PPI therapy, will read out in January. Next step, partnership?
- WTF: At least it was bipartisan. The NYT reports that Genentech lobbyists ghost-wrote health care reform related statements and speeches for 22 republican and 20 democratic Congressmen.
