The Bayer Group got off to a successful start in the new fiscal year. "All segments posted gains in their operating performance," said CEO Dr. Marijn Dekkers when he presented the interim report for the first quarter on Tuesday. At Pharmaceuticals, Bayer again benefited from the very good development of its recently launched products.

Merck, a leading science and technology company, has announced the participants for its Accelerator Programs in Darmstadt and Nairobi. Almost 200 highly competitive applications from 47 countries were submitted for consideration.

The award-winner of the 2016 Otto Bayer Award has been named: the Board of Trustees of the Bayer Science & Education Foundation and the Scientific Committee for this award have presented Professor Dr. Dirk Trauner with the EUR 75,000 prize, one of Germany's most prestigious scientific accolades.

AstraZeneca and its global biologics research and development arm, MedImmune, today announced an integrated genomics initiative to transform drug discovery and development across its entire research and development pipeline.

Novartis laid out five priorities for 2016: deliver strong financial results; strengthen innovation; improve Alcon performance; capture cross-divisional synergies; and build a higher-performing organization. Net sales were USD 11.6 billion (-3%, +1% cc) in the first quarter, as volume growth of 7 percentage points more than offset the negative impact of generic competition (-4 percentage points) and pricing (-2 percentage points).

In the first quarter of 2016, Group sales rose 4% to CHF 12.4 billion. Sales in the Pharmaceuticals Division were up 4% to CHF 9.8 billion with Europe growing 5%, driven by Perjeta, MabThera and RoActemra. Pharmaceuticals sales in the US increased 3%, led by Esbriet, Xolair and HER2-positive breast cancer medicines. The recently launched medicines Cotellic in skin cancer and Alecensa in lung cancer have had a good start.

Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted the company's Biologics License Application (BLA) and granted Priority Review for atezolizumab (anti-PDL1; MPDL3280A) for the treatment of people with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose disease expresses