Endo Health Solutions has announced it will buy Auxilium pharmaceuticals for an estimated $2.6 billion, Bloomberg reported Thursday. The deal will bolster Endo’s branded pharmaceutical portfolio, including Testim, a topical treatment for patients with low testosterone. A recent FDA panel voted 20-1 to design limits around these drugs, and also stated that more information is needed to assess whether these treatments pose a cardiovascular risk.
Three Novartis executives are on the way out once deals with GlaxoSmithKline and Eli Lilly close. Reuters reports that the head of the soon-to-be Eli Lilly animal health business, George Gunderson, will resign from the company’s executive committee in the first quarter of next year, Novartis Vaccines executive Andrin Oswald will leave the company and Brian McNamara, who heads up the OTC unit, is heading to GSK to lead the Americas and Europe consumer health business.
The National Institutes of Health are funneling $29 million in grant money towards rare disease research for the 2014 fiscal year. The money will support scientists and members of the Rare Diseases and Clinical Research Network and will be directed towards the study of neurological, bone and lung diseases, among others. The distribution is being handled by the NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.
The Open Payments database shows a financial divide between men and women. ProPublica and the New York Times report that “few women are on the list of doctors paid the most money by drug and medical device companies last year,” based on analysis of data published last week. The data crunchers write that although men represented 68% of active physicians in the US two years ago, men comprised more than 90% of the highest-compensated doctors. The NYT and ProPublica note that several factors could influence the disparity, such as possible pharma favoritism of male doctors or that men “are simply much more likely to be in the senior positions or medical specialties that appeal to drug companies.”
GE Healthcare subsidiary Clairent and GSK have forged a collaboration deal in cancer testing, market research firm Kalorama Information announced Tuesday. The two companies will form a “multi-purpose, data analytics- and companion diagnostics-driven network of laboratories” by certifying laboratories to perform cancer diagnostic testing. This networked lab testing will enable the duo to focus on 70 melanoma-specific mutations.
