Stefan Brinkmann, Managing Director of Nycomed GmbH, kicked off the German market launch of Daxas® (Roflumilast) in Oranienburg today, making Germany the first country to market the medicine. Daxas® is a proprietary selective phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4) enzyme inhibitor that was developed by Nycomed to treat the progressive, life-threatening lung disease COPD.

The Phase III EINSTEIN-DVT clinical trial of the oral anticoagulant rivaroxaban demonstrated non-inferiority compared to the standard of care for the prevention of recurrent venous thromboembolism (VTE) in patients with acute symptomatic deep vein thrombosis (DVT), with a comparable safety profile.

Shire plc (LSE: SHP, NASDAQ: SHPGY), the global specialty biopharmaceutical company, announced its support for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) fellowships at leading medical institutions across the country.

Genzyme Corp. (NASDAQ: GENZ) today confirmed that it has received an unsolicited, non-binding proposal from Sanofi-Aventis to acquire all the outstanding shares of Genzyme for $69 per share in cash. The Genzyme board of directors met last night, unanimously affirmed its previous rejection of Sanofi's proposal, and instructed the company to send Sanofi the following response letter:

Sanofi-aventis (EURONEXT: SAN and NYSE: SNY) announced that it has submitted a non-binding proposal to acquire Genzyme (NASDAQ: GENZ) in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $18.5 billion.

A new genetic substudy of PLATO (A Study of PLATelet Inhibition and Patient Outcomes) showed that the effects on a combined primary endpoint of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or stroke seen in Acute Coronary Syndromes (ACS) patients who received the investigational oral antiplatelet treatment, ticagrelor (BRILINTA™), were maintained, whether or not they had the genetic variability that has been previously shown to affect a patient's response to clopidogrel.

Boehringer Ingelheim celebrated the inauguration of its new "Center of Competence" (CoC) in Shanghai. As part of the company's EUR 100 million expansion project in China, the CoC entails an investment of EUR 10 million and will specialise in optimising active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and chemical intermediates procured in China.