Lisa Kowalski has joined Healthline Networks as senior director, strategic accounts for the West Coast. Kowalski was previously a senior global sales executive at Yahoo.

Abbott received FDA approval for its Xience V drug-coated stent, used to treat coronary artery disease. The stent is used to prop open a narrowed or blocked artery and releases a drug, everolimus, to prevent further blockage.

Verispan's biennial study, Pharmaceutical Company Image 2008, found that Eli Lilly ranked highest with psychiatrists.

Pfizer will no longer fund continuing medical education through med ed firms.

A physicians' manifesto of sorts, composed by Sermo doctors demanding an end to intrusive insurers and overzealous regulators, has garnered 5,200 signatures in the several weeks since it was posted.

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Aging has written the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) complaining that GlaxoSmithKline, which makes Valtrex, "sponsors CME events which promote testing all pregnant women for herpes."

Rob Rogers and Louisa Holland have been promoted to co-CEO of Sudler and Hennessey's operations in the Americas.

GlaxoSmithKline is seeing a "leveling off of the impact" of Chantix on sales of its behind-the-counter nicotine replacement therapies (NRT) amid concerns about the safety of the smoking cessation drug.

New legislation in the Senate would reverse a Supreme Court pre-emption ruling on medical devices.

AstraZeneca's chief marketer Tony Zook is stepping in as interim head of MedImmune following the announcement that Dave Mott, president and chief executive of the biologics unit, will step down at the end of July.