1. Johnson & Johnson is still on the acquisition trail despite plans to spend $10 billion buying back some of its own stock, according to Bloomberg Business. J&J in March failed in an attempt to buy cancer drugmaker Pharmacyclics, which was snatched up by AbbVie. Rather than pursue a major deal, J&J should look for smaller tuck-in deals, one analyst told Bloomberg Business.
2. Eli Lilly wants college students to better understand the drug-development process so it has created an online course about drug discovery and development that it is offering colleges, reported USA Today. The course is designed to fill “a knowledge gap surrounding the biopharmaceutical industry and its drug discovery and development process,” Lilly said. It comes at a time of heightened public and Congressional concern over rising drug prices.
3. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both said that drug companies are their political enemies during Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate. The candidates have both proposed plans to address rising drug prices.
4. A Chinese company plans to produce an Ebola vaccine developed by the Chinese army, reported the International Business Times. A new $315 million facility is being built by Tianjin CanSino Biotechnology to manufacture the vaccine. The facility is scheduled to be completed by 2018 although no date has been set to start manufacturing the vaccine there.
5. A new study confirmed previous studies that demonstrate women are less likely than men to take heart medications following a heart attack, reported HealthDay News. The latest results come from a Canadian study that found that women under 55 years old are less likely to take post–heart attack prescribed medications than men in the same age group. Either doctors are prescribing fewer medications for women or women simply are not taking what has been prescribed, a Canadian researcher said.
