FDAnews Drug Daily Bulletin

Amid the growing uncertainty about the safety of Cox-2 inhibitors, Pfizer has agreed to delay the European launch of Onsenal, a Cox-2 drug approved in the EU for the treatment of intestinal polyps.

Drugmakers Pfizer and Schering-Plough made their presence felt in the biotech industry recently, as both firms announced plans to acquire biopharmaceutical firms.

In a move that could boost the market for HIV drugs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued revised guidelines recommending that physicians provide antiretroviral drugs to patients exposed to HIV from rapes, accidents, injection-drug use or unsafe sex.

Roche will begin posting results from key clinical research studies online by the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2005, the company said.

European drug price controls are threatening to provoke a trade dispute with the U.S., the chief executive of the world's biggest pharmaceutical company says.

People affected by Thalidomide are to receive an extra compensation payment.

Lupin, the Mumbai-based pharma major, has announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Lupin Pharmaceuticals (LPI), has entered into an alliance with Cornerstone BioPharma as a promotion partner in the U.S. for its Suprax (cefixime) anti-infective.

Transport Pharmaceuticals will license its oral herpes treatment under development to GlaxoSmithKline, the company said.

Cyntellect, a privately held biotechnology company, has announced that an undisclosed U.S.-based biotechnology company has entered into a formal agreement to access Cyntellect's Cell Xpress service.

The U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center has enlisted Icoria to help it with research that eventually could be used to try to discover new treatments for low-level chemical warfare agent exposure.

German health ministry representatives will be meeting with U.S. officials in February regarding concern over the German health reform's effect on U.S. pharmaceuticals, according to a prerelease of an article scheduled to be published in Die Welt.

Hollister-Stier Laboratories, the Spokane pharmaceutical maker, is taking an early first step toward a major manufacturing expansion at its northeast Spokane plant.