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Dow Jones Newswires | Accretive Health Inc.’s initial public offering of at least 10 million
shares priced at $12 each, making it the second company Wednesday to
price its IPO well below the expected range.
The Chicago-based hospital-billing manager, which originally
anticipated the share pricing between $14 and $16, also cut the size of
the offering from 13.3 million shares. It had said it would sell half
the original share amount, with current shareholders selling the rest.
Associated Press | Drug and medical device maker Hospira Inc. said it has extended its $145 million tender offer for Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc., citing unsatisfied conditions of the buyout. The offer, which was scheduled to expire Tuesday, is now extended to June 2.
From Reuters | A U.S. House of Representatives panel is investigating personal genetic testing kits like those originally slated this month to be sold by Walgreens. Walgreens, and later CVS, reversed plans to sell the tests after the FDA said it had not approved them.
Get the full story: reuters.com
By Bruce Japsen |
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved an Abbott
Laboratories’ blood sugar test the agency hopes will eliminate
inaccurate results in certain diabetic patients taking other
medications.
The FDA has been working with the makers of certain glucose-testing
strips from Abbott, Roche Diagnostics and other companies to prevent a
potentially deadly problem the agency said for years put at risk
diabetic patients who received drugs containing certain sugars other
than glucose.The FDA said certain dialysis and other biologic drugs
contain “non-glucose sugars,” which can falsely elevate results and
increase the risk of overdose from insulin.
By Bruce Japsen | Medical product giant Baxter International Inc. and a San Diego biotech
company issued a voluntary recall of Hylenex vials after discovering
small “flake-like glass particles in a limited number of vials.”
The recall comes less than a year after Baxter launched the product as
a new way to administer intravenous fluids to rehydrate children and
infants more quickly and efficiently. Hylenex can be administered
without the tricky search for a tiny vein.
By Bruce Japsen and Sandra M. Jones | Walgreen Co. reversed a decision to carry genetic test kits in its stores after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began looking into the supplier.
The Deerfield-based drugstore had planned to begin stocking its shelves with the Pathway Genomics home test kit on Friday, as reported by the Tribune yesterday. Walgreens’ decision was announced within hours after the FDA released an enforcement letter sent to San Diego-based Pathway giving it 15 days to respond to the agency’s request for information regarding its controversial genetic home test kit.
By Bruce Japsen and Sandra M. Jones | The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given San Diego-based Pathway Genomics 15 days to respond to the agency’s request for information regarding its controversial genetic home test kit.
In a letter released this evening, FDA Deputy Director for Patient Safety and Product Quality James Woods said the agency has been “unable to identify any Food and Drug Administration clearance or approval number” for the product.
By Bruce Japsen | The looming decline in sales from the blockbuster diabetes drug Actos
figured into Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.’s decision Wednesday to slash
nearly 1,600 U.S. jobs — including hundreds in Chicago’s northern
suburbs.
Japan’s largest drug maker operates from its U.S. base in Deerfield
under the name Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America Inc. It faces
competition in the next two years from upcoming generic versions of its
flagship product, the diabetes prescription Actos.
By Sandra M. Jones and
Bruce Japsen | Genetic testing is making its way to the corner drug store, and federal
regulators aren’t too happy about it.
Walgreens will begin
selling personal genetic testing kits on Friday, the first major retail
chain in the U.S. to offer the home tests. CVS plans to have the same test kits in its stores
by August.
Both drug store chains are buying the kits from
Pathway Genomics, a San Diego-based startup that offers genetic health
and ancestry reports.
The over-the-counter tests, which have been available through a few
Internet retailers, haven’t reached a mass audience until now. And their
pending arrival has scientists and bio-ethicists concerned that
consumers will misuse or misunderstand the results.
Associated Press | Boeing workers who assemble the giant C-17 cargo jets in Long Beach, Calif., are on picket lines in a dispute over pension and medical benefits.
The walkout began at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, and picket lines are up at several Boeing locations in Long Beach. Boeing, which is based in Chicago, is Long Beach’s largest employer with some 1,700 workers.
Get the full story: Boeing workers protest changes in benefits.
By Bruce Japsen | Abbott
Laboratories said it has signed a deal with India-based Zydus Cadila of
India to sell a portfolio of the India company’s drugs, including
generic medicines, in 15 emerging markets.
Former Vice President Al Gore gives the keynote address to the Bio International Convention this week in McCormick Place. (Phil Velsaquez/Tribune)
By Bruce Japsen | The economic crisis could be preventing the next life-saving drug or medical treatment from reaching consumers, say biotech companies and their leaders.
According to data provided to the Tribune at the Biotechnology Industry Organization’s annual meeting in Chicago this week, the banking crisis that has tightened lending and investors skittish about risky propositions including biotechnology have led to a 25 percent decline in public biotech companies.
Dow Jones Newswires | Accretive Health Inc. disclosed estimated
terms of its initial public offering, projecting more money will be
raised than first estimated.
The company, which aims to help health-care providers maximize revenue
and profit through such means as managing back-office operations and
working with health insurers, projects the sale of at least 13.3
million shares at a price of $14 to $16 each. Accretive and current
holders would each sell half the shares available. There will be some
90 million shares outstanding after the IPO.
By Bruce Japsen | The U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordered Baxter International Inc.
to recall 200,000 of the company’s Colleague brand pumps, escalating its
scrutiny of infusion pumps used primarily in hospitals.
The FDA said the Deerfield-based drug and device maker must “recall and
destroy” all of its Colleague pumps, saying the action is based on “a
longstanding failure” of the company to correct serious problems with
the pumps. Baxter will incur a special pretax special charge of $400
million to $600 million in the first quarter to cover the cost of the
recall.
Dow Jones Newswires | The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is conducting a safety review of
hormone-therapy drugs that are used to treat prostate cancer to see if
the treatments increase the risk of heart attacks, strokes and diabetes.
The drugs, which fall into a class of products known as
gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists, are sold under brand names that
include Abbott Laboratories’ Lupron, AstraZeneca PLC’s Zoladex and
Sanofi Aventis SA’s Eligard. The products are designed to lower levels
of male hormones, which can shrink prostate tumors and slow the growth
of prostate cancer.
