Group sales rose 5% in the first quarter, driven by demand for cancer medicines (in particular the HER2 breast cancer franchise, Avastin and MabThera/Rituxan), as well as Actemra/RoActemra for rheumatoid arthritis. Sales of Xeloda, a chemotherapy drug, were lower as the product is now off patent and faces generic competition in the United States and Europe.

Abbott (NYSE: ABT) today announced it has completed enrollment of three clinical trials to support approvals of the company's revolutionary Absorb™ Bioresorbable Vascular Scaffold (BVS) in the United States, Japan and China. Combined, the U.S., Japan and China account for more than 50 percent of the world's heart stent market.

Novartis announced today that two million treatments of its pediatric antimalarial are arriving in Zambia thanks to the ongoing efforts of the company in collaboration with Malaria No More's Power of One campaign. Zambia is the first beneficiary country of this campaign sponsored by Novartis.

Merck Serono, the biopharmaceutical division of Merck, announced that its U.S. affiliate EMD Serono has signed a research agreement with Pfizer Inc. and the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. The collaboration is focused on the genomic profiling of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) and Lupus Nephritis (LN) patients. The research project will be jointly funded by Merck Serono and Pfizer.

Bayer HealthCare will invest around EUR 100 million to significantly increase the production capacity of its plant in Beijing, China, in preparation for further demand of its products in the country. A respective agreement was signed in Germany on the occasion of the visit of the President of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping, by the CEO of Bayer AG, Dr Marijn Dekkers.

AstraZeneca and the Medical Research Council (MRC) today announced that they have entered into a groundbreaking collaboration aimed at better understanding the mechanisms of human disease. The collaboration will see the creation of a joint research facility at AstraZeneca's new R&D centre in Cambridge in the UK.

Novo Nordisk today announces the launch of 'Cities Changing Diabetes', an ambitious new partnership programme to fight the urban diabetes challenge. The 'Cities Changing Diabetes' programme will first be launched in Mexico City with other cities in North America, Europe and Asia soon to follow.