Pfizer and Wyeth to Divest Certain Animal Health Assets to Boehringer Ingelheim
Pfizer Inc (NYSE: PFE) and Wyeth (NYSE: WYE) announced that they have entered into an agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim to divest certain animal health assets in connection with the regulatory approval process associated with Pfizer's pending acquisition of Wyeth. Under the terms of the agreement, Boehringer Ingelheim will acquire products, research and manufacturing facilities, located in Fort Dodge, Iowa, as well as related assets and intellectual property, primarily from Wyeth's Fort Dodge Animal Health portfolio in the U.S. and Canada. 
The European Respiratory Society (ERS) is delighted to announce that Dr. Benjamin John Marsland, Faculté de Biologie et de Médecine, Service de Pneumologie, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Lausanne, Switzerland is this year's winner of the Society's annual award for research in the field of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).
The OASIS study group has presented initial results of the CURRENT-OASIS 7 clinical trial at the European Society of Cardiology congress in Barcelona. Sanofi-aventis (EURONEXT: SAN, and NYSE: SNY) and Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY), co-commercialization and co-development partners for PLAVIX® (clopidogrel bisulfate), were sponsors of the study.
Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) has unveiled a new operating model and announced a series of changes to speed medicines from its pipeline to patients. To help achieve this goal, the company will establish a Development Center of Excellence to streamline and accelerate late-stage development of new medicines, and will reorganize its pharmaceutical business into four business units that will operate alongside the Elanco animal health business unit. In addition, the company has set a goal to significantly reduce its cost structure by the end of 2011.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) today announced results from its first clinical trial assessing use of its pandemic (H1N1) adjuvanted vaccine. The results demonstrate that after one dose the candidate vaccine can provide a strong immune response which exceeds the immunogenicity criteria as defined by international licensing authorities for a pandemic influenza vaccine. 
Merck KGaA has announced new data from a post-hoc analysis of the two-year (96-week) placebo-controlled CLARITY(1) Phase III trial using a short-course of Cladribine Tablets (the proprietary investigational oral formulation of cladribine) to treat patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS). The data from this post-hoc analysis of the CLARITY study were presented at the 25th congress of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS) in Duesseldorf, Germany.(2)
Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of sanofi-aventis Group (EURONEXT : SAN and NYSE : SNY), has signed an agreement with Butantan Institute for the production and supply of a vaccine against the novel A(H1N1) influenza virus for the Brazilian Government. This contract was announced during a state visit to Brazil by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.