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India steps up fight against cigarette firms over health warnings

By Aditya Kalra NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India's health ministry has ordered government agencies to enforce a new rule for bigger health warnings on cigarette packs, stepping up a fight against the country's $10 billion cigarette industry that has shut down its factories in protest. The health ministry's action highlights a growing conflict between the tobacco industry and the federal government which wants manufacturers to cover 85 percent of a cigarette pack's surface in health warnings, up from 20 percent. India's biggest cigarette maker ITC Ltd, part-owned by British American Tobacco, has not implemented the government order, saying it contradicts a parliamentary committee's recommendation for warnings to cover half a cigarette pack.

Sacked Sanofi boss joins PureTech board

Chris Viehbacher, sacked as chief executive of French drugs firm Sanofi last year, is to join the board of PureTech, a privately owned healthcare science and technology R&D company. Boston-based PureTech's co-founder and senior partner Robert Langer said in a statement he had known the German-Canadian Viehbacher for many years “and I am very excited that we will be working together more closely now”. Viehbacher, who moved to Boston last year while he was still running Sanofi, raised the French company's multinational profile during his six years in the job by completing over $30 billion of acquisitions including that of Boston-based Genzyme.