Merck KGaA and its Life Science division Merck Millipore have sent thousands of state-of-the-art water test kits to Thailand in an effort to ensure the safety of municipal drinking water following months of devastating flooding in that region.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and Excaliard Pharmaceuticals, Inc. have entered into a definitive agreement under which Pfizer will acquire Excaliard, a privately owned biopharmaceutical company focused on developing novel drugs for the treatment of skin fibrosis, more commonly referred to as skin scarring.

Amgen announced the issuance of U.S. Patent No. 8,063,182 related to Enbrel® (etanercept). This patent is owned by Hoffman-La Roche Inc. ("Roche") and exclusively licensed to Amgen.

Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) announced that the FDA Commissioner is revoking the approval of Avastin (bevacizumab) for the treatment of mBC in the United States.

Pfizer Inc. has received the 2011 Business Civic Leadership Center's Corporate Citizenship Award in the Best International Ambassador category for Pfizer's Global Health Partnerships program.

The discovery of a new class of dual-acting antimalarial compounds - the imidazolopiperazines (IZPs) - was published in the journal Science online, at the Science Express website[1].

Genzyme, a Sanofi company (EURONEXT: SAN and NYSE: SNY), and Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Therapeutics Inc., the nonprofit affiliate of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, announced a research agreement to support the discovery of new drugs to treat people with the most common mutation found in patients with CF, Delta F508.