Pfizer named Dr. Martin Mackay as President of Pfizer Global Research and Development (PGRD); launched an independent, stand-alone biotherapeutics and bioinnovation center under the direction of scientist and entrepreneur Dr. Corey Goodman; and named Dr. Briggs Morrison, who held senior research and development positions at Merck, as its new Head of Clinical Development for the PGRD pipeline.

On Sept. 19th, 2007, the Canadian Patent Office (CIPO) granted an authorisation to the Canadian generic manufacturer Apotex Inc. for the production of a certain volume of APO-TRIOVIR for export into Rwanda. This HIV medicament is a fixed dose combination of three active ingredients, one of which is nevirapine patented for Boehringer Ingelheim.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced its marketing application for non-prescription orlistat 60mg for weight loss has been accepted for review by the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products (EMEA). Orlistat 60 mg was approved for non-prescription sale in the US by the FDA in February 2007 for use by overweight adults in conjunction with a reduced-calorie, low-fat dietand went on sale there in June 2007 under the brand name alli™.

New data show that the addition of Herceptin (trastuzumab) to chemotherapy prior to breast cancer surgery (neoadjuvant therapy) completely eradicates tumours in nearly three times as many women with inflammatory HER2-positive breast cancer compared to chemotherapy alone. Inflammatory breast cancer is a rare, but highly aggressive form of the disease - the tumours spread quickly, often leading to the need for total mastectomies, and it has a worse outlook than other breast cancers.

Bionas GmbH, a specialist for in vitro profiling of cellular metabolic activity, announced that it has signed a service contract with Solvay Pharmaceuticals GmbH (Hannover, Germany). The contract covers the metabolic profiling of several drug candidates identified in the context of Solvay's obesity research program. Financial details were not disclosed.

Bayer HealthCare and development partner Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced positive results from a Phase 2 study evaluating the VEGF Trap-Eye in the neovascular form of age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD), one of the leading causes of blindness in adults. The VEGF Trap-Eye met both the primary study endpoint of a statistically significant reduction in retinal thickness and the key secondary endpoint of improvement of visual acuity after 12 weeks.

Novartis and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have launched a long-term research collaboration aimed at transforming the way pharmaceuticals are produced. The 10-year partnership, known as the Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing, will work to develop new technologies that could replace the conventional batch-based system in the pharmaceuticals industry - which often includes many interruptions and work at separate sites - with continuous manufacturing processes from start to finish.