> Yakult Honsha has forged a deal in which it will pay Celsion $20.5 million in licensing fees to acquire the rights to the drug delivery platform ThermoDox for the Japanese market. $2.5 million will be paid immediately, followed by an $18 million payment upon the approval of ThermoDox by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. Release
> Results from a Phase III study show that patients with metastatic breast cancer who were treated previously with an anthracycline in the adjuvant setting experienced a significant improvement in time to disease progression and overall response rates after receiving a combination of Doxil (doxorubicin HCl liposome injection) and docetaxel as compared to docetaxel alone. The study found that patients treated with the DOXIL and docetaxel combination had a 35 percent risk reduction for developing disease progression compared with docetaxel alone. Release
> GlaxoSmithKline has extended its tender offer for shares of Genelabs Technologies in order to meet the deal's 90 percent requirement. Report
> San Diego-based Santarus will pay Italy's Cosmo Pharmaceuticals $2.5 million along with 6 million shares of stock for the rights to commercialize two Cosmo therapies in the U.S. Report
> Another Tysabri patient has contracted the potentially fatal brain infection PML, the fourth case this year. Biogen Idec and its Tysabri partner, Elan, notified regulators of the new diagnosis yesterday. It's a blow to Biogen and Elan, certainly, but many multiple sclerosis patients have proven steadfast about using Tysabri. Report
> Call it a tale of two dividends. For the first time in 42 years, Pfizer is not hiking its quarterly dividend. Hardly shocking in today's economy and today's pharma industry, especially as the company is prepping for the loss of Lipitor. Meanwhile, Eli Lilly took the opposite approach, raising its payout by 2 cents per share to 49 cents. Report
> To hear the experts tell it, the future of personalized medicine hangs in the balance today. An FDA advisory panel is set to talk over standards for linking genetic tests with cancer drugs. Report
> New experiments have shown how the "Seven-In-Absentia-Homolog" protein targets a key pathway for pancreatic cancer. And the research at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Minnesota points to a new approach to treating the lethal disease. Report
> Professor Marco Falasca and a team of researchers at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry say that by stopping cancer cells from producing an enzyme known as PLCg1, they were able to prevent metastasis in mice. If researchers can find a drug that blocks the enzyme, they add, the developers could theoretically stop cancer before it can spread. Report
> Medical journal reports on clinical trial results are intended to paint a clear picture of a drug's safety and efficacy. But a research team at UCSF recently concluded from an analysis of the data gathered in 164 trials that developers often skew their results, purposefully highlighting the positive when describing trial results--or omitting unfavorable information. Report
And Finally... The new head of the NIH will face some big challenges ahead, reports the Washington Post. Among the biggest hurdles: Reversing a decline in overall federal funding for research, a trend that's lasted for the past five years, and continuing the unwritten rule of preventing the president from influencing research initiatives too much. Report