France's Sanofi said on Sunday that two late-stage Phase III clinical trials of its LixiLan diabetes drug had met their targets, readying it for approval in the United States in August and Europe early next year. LixiLan consists of a single-injection combination of Lyxumia, a drug developed with Danish drugmaker Zealand Pharma, and Sanofi's Lantus. It targets patients suffering from type 2 diabetes.
By Zeba Siddiqui MUMBAI (Reuters) – India’s second-largest drugmaker Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd said it agreed to buy eight generic drugs from Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and Allergan Plc for $350 million in cash to bolster its U.S. business. The deal is among Dr Reddy’s biggest acquisitions, and comes at a time when the company has been facing slowing growth in the United States, its largest market, due to regulatory troubles and fewer new drug approvals. The drugs Dr Reddy’s is buying are being divested by Israel-based Teva, the world’s largest maker of generic drugs, to win U.S. antitrust clearance for its $40.5 billion acquisition of Allergan’s generic drugs portfolio.
By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) – Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc will pay $54 million to settle civil charges that its Salix unit paid illegal kickbacks to induce doctors to prescribe seven of its products, causing the submission of thousands of fraudulent reimbursement claims to the U.S. government. The accord announced on Thursday by the U.S. Department of Justice covers alleged improper activity at the former Salix Pharmaceuticals Inc from 2009 to 2013, predating its April 2015 acquisition by Valeant for more than $11 billion. Salix admitted and accepted responsibility for routinely paying doctors hundreds or thousands of dollars, or offering perks including lavish meals at restaurants such as Le Bernardin and Nobu, to attend some of its roughly 10,000 “speaker programs,” including many with little or no educational value.
Volkswagen said on Wednesday it received regulatory approval to fix another 1.1 million cars, raising the number of VW models cleared for refitting to more than 2.5 million since the start of the year. Germany's motor vehicle authority KBA has approved fixes for VW brand models, VW commercial vehicles and Audi luxury cars including the Tiguan SUV and Caddy model with 2.0 liter TDI EA 189 engines, the carmaker said. VW said the KBA has confirmed that the fixes would not result in any changes to fuel consumption, performance or noise emissions of the affected cars.
The change, effective immediately, was made “to protect long-term interests of stockholders,” National Amusements, a privately held movie theater company that owns 80 percent of Viacom's voting stock, said in a news release on Monday. Dauman is trying to sell a minority stake in Paramount, and has said he expects to announce a deal in June. Sumner Redstone, who sits on Viacom's board, has voiced concern about the idea, according to recent statements issued by a spokesman.
BEIJING (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said on Sunday he believes China and the United States can make progress in opening China’s financial and healthcare sectors.
Former world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali was close to death in a Phoenix-area hospital on Friday, a source close to the family said. Ali, 74, one of the world's most celebrated athletes, was hospitalized this week for a respiratory ailment. Asked about Ali's condition, the source said: “It's extraordinarily grave.
VILNIUS (Reuters) – It took 11 seconds for 10-month-old Kamilis Dambrauskas to crawl five meters of plush carpet towards victory on Wednesday in an annual competition to crown Lithuania's fastest toddler. Dambrauskas was the fastest among 25 toddlers, whose mothers lured them towards the finish line by flashing items ranging from television remote controls and mobile phones to milk bottles, red balloons, plush animal toys and a cat's feeding bowl full of cat food pellets. “We trained a lot at home. …
How much of your day do you feel that your body's in stress vs. recovery mode?Whilst we can have a guestimate ourselves, there is a way to take a more scientific approach via heart rate variability testing. I recently went through three days of this in the form of a Lifestyle assessment followed by a debrief with wellness accountant Gitana…
SINGAPORE/HONG KONG (Reuters) – U.S. lender CIT Group Inc has kicked off the sale of its aircraft leasing assets by inviting more than a dozen entities to consider bidding, including China's HNA Group, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China's ICBC Leasing, and Japan's Orix Corp , sources familiar with the matter said. The sale of CIT's Commercial Air unit could fetch between $3 billion to $4 billion, with Century Tokyo Leasing , sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp, CDB Leasing, plus some global pension funds and insurers, also invited to bid for the assets, the sources added.