MM&M News Brief - Dec. 06, 2007 - Medical Marketing and Media

Top Stories

Avastin setback could affect other cancer meds, analyst says

Marc Iskowitz December 06, 2007

Yesterday's thumbs-down by an FDA advisory panel may squelch not only a Genentech bid to get Avastin approved for treating breast cancer but other cancer drugs may now have a tougher time proving their survival rates justify label extensions, an analyst said.

Revolution Health buys two online companies in battle to unseat WebMD

Stephen McGuire December 05, 2007

Revolution Health has acquired the online properties HealthTalk and SparkPeople in an attempt to dethrone WebMD as the Web's No.1 health destination. Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed.

BMS confirms job cuts at investor meeting

Stephen McGuire December 06, 2007

Bristol-Myers Squibb confirmed on Wednesday that it would cut nearly 10% of its 43,000-member workforce. The drugmaker also announced plans to sell or close half of its 27 manufacturing plants across the globe, outsource some of its manufacturing and shrink its portfolio of 500 products by 60%.

In Other News

Pfizer and Adolor in pain drug pact

Stephen McGuire December 06, 2007

Pfizer and Adolor have inked a collaboration deal to develop and commercialize the novel pipeline compounds ADL5859 and ADL5747 for the treatment of pain.

Dossier offers one-stop shop for new drug insights

December 06, 2007

Introduced last week, MM&M's New Drug Dossier is enjoying a successful debut, as pharmaceutical marketers continue to recognize the utility of this business intelligence tool.

Novartis planning four new cancer drugs: Oncology president says

Stephen McGuire December 05, 2007

David Epstein, president of Novartis Oncology, said he hopes the drug maker will be able to start selling four new cancer treatments by the year 2011.

Product news

December 06, 2007

Amgen said the European Commission has granted a conditional marketing authorization for Vectibix (panitumumab) as monotherapy for the treatment of patients with epidermal growth factor receptor expressing metastatic colorectal cancer with non-mutated (wild-type) KRAS genes after failure of standard chemotherapy regimens.

People News

December 06, 2007

MediZine has announced the appointment of Sophia Tolstoy Penkrat as senior promotion manager.

Company news

December 06, 2007

HealthLeaders Media announced the launch of its newly redeveloped website www.HealthLeadersMedia.com.

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