Sanofi-Aventis handed over Actonel marketing rights in the US to its collaborator on the drug, Warner Chilcott. Warner Chilcott will take full operational control over promotion, marketing and R&D decisions in the US and Puerto Rico. As part of the deal, Warner Chilcott will offer “a number of sales reps currently promoting Actonel for Sanofi-Aventis” jobs on the Warner Chilcott sales force.

Several female Novartis sales reps testified that doctors who crossed the professional line with their sales reps were given a free pass at Novartis. Their testimony came as part of a $200 million class-action discrimination suit against the company.

PharmaShine, an online application that launched last August, is hoping to capitalize on the difficulty of looking up publicly disclosed payments to physicians from pharmas. Users receive e-mail alerts, graphs and comparative data on payment information covering over 21,000 US physicians.