Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited ("Takeda", TSE: 4502) and Nycomed A/S ("Nycomed") jointly announced today that Takeda has reached an agreement with the shareholders of Nycomed in which Takeda will acquire the Zurich-headquartered company for 9.6 billion Euro on a cash-free, debt-free basis.

Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) announced that data showing new personalised therapeutic approaches for people with skin and lung cancer, plus new data with Avastin (bevacizumab) in ovarian cancer, will be presented at the 47th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

Shire plc (LSE: SHP, NASDAQ: SHPGY), the global specialty biopharmaceutical company, announces that it has signed an agreement to acquire Advanced BioHealing, Inc.

Pfizer Inc. will present more than 30 abstracts, including data from investigational compounds, axitinib,(1) crizotinib,(2) and bosutinib,(3) as well as data evaluating Sutent® (sunitinib malate), across multiple tumor types,(4,5) at the 47th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago from June 3-7.

Patrick Dempsey is speaking out to help connect cancer patients to the free resources available to them via Amgen's Breakaway from Cancer(R) initiative.

Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) announced that the company submitted a New Drug Application for vemurafenib (RG7204, PLX4032) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and a Marketing Authorization Application to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for approval for people with BRAF V600 mutation-positive metastatic melanoma.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), The University of Manchester, and AstraZeneca announce today the creation of the Manchester Collaborative Centre for Inflammation Research (MCCIR), a unique collaboration to establish a world-leading translational centre for inflammatory diseases.