More than 97% of Novartis shareholders today followed the Board of Directors' recommendations for all proposed resolutions at the Group's Annual General Meeting. A total of 1,776 shareholders were present at the meeting held in Basel, representing approximately 61.6% of the issued shares of Novartis.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY) today announced that it has completed the previously announced sale of its HIV R&D portfolio to ViiV Healthcare, which includes a number of programs at different stages of discovery, preclinical and clinical development.

AstraZeneca today announced that the European Commission has granted marketing authorisation for Brilique (ticagrelor) at a new 60mg dose for the treatment of patients who have suffered a heart attack at least one year prior and are at high risk of developing a further atherothrombotic event.

Alcon, the global leader in eye care and a division of Novartis, announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Transcend Medical, Inc., a privately-held, US-based company focused on developing minimally-invasive surgical devices to treat glaucoma.

Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation for the investigational medicine ocrelizumab (OCREVUSTM) for the treatment of people with primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS).

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY) and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute today announced that they have entered into a research collaboration agreement as part of the Immuno-Oncology Rare Population Malignancy (I-O RPM) program in the U.S.

UCB and Baylor College of Medicine announced that they have started a strategic research alliance, led at Baylor by Professor Huda Zoghbi, that aims to discover new therapeutics to treat neurodegenerative disease.