FDAnews Drug Daily Bulletin

Pharmaceutical benefit manager (PBM) Medco Health Solutions has agreed to acquire Accredo Health for $2.2 billion -- a deal that would create the nation's largest specialty pharmacy business, Medco has announced.

Although Merck has not yet divulged its intentions regarding the future of Vioxx, pharmaceutical analysts expect the drugmaker to reintroduce the controversial arthritis pain treatment sometime this fall, following the favorable recommendation issued recently by an FDA advisory panel.

The pharmaceutical markets of the 10 European Union (EU) member countries added to the EU in 2004 have been rapidly expanding in recent years, despite more subdued growth in the rest of the region, according to a new research report.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has filed a patent infringement lawsuit in federal court against Spectrum Pharmaceuticals to prevent Spectrum from developing a generic version of GSK's migraine drug Imitrex.

Arginox Pharmaceuticals, an emerging specialty pharmaceutical company, has announced the closing of $25 million in Series C financing.

Discovery Partners International has announced that it has signed a binding letter of intent, subject to confirmatory due diligence, to acquire Biofrontera Discovery GmbH, based in Heidelberg, Germany, the natural products drug discovery subsidiary of Biofrontera AG, a privately held specialty pharma business.

Debiopharm S.A., the independent drug development company specializing in oncology, endocrinology and niche products, has announced that it has purchased all the outstanding shares of H3 Pharma from Montreal-based Societe Generale de Financement du Quebec (SGF).

Drug development firm Point Therapeutics said recently it plans to sell 3.65 million of its common shares at $4.50 each in a direct offering, primarily to institutional investors.

Nautilus Biotech a private protein pharmaceutical company announced the completion of a Euro 7.25 million round of financing with a syndicate led by Auriga Partners.

Privately held biotech company Sciona Inc. has closed on its third round of financing, its first since relocating from the United Kingdom to Boulder earlier this year.

Chugai Pharmaceutical has announced the reorganization plan of its production framework.

3M Co. announced plans to work with a Japanese firm to develop and market a potential treatment for two conditions that can lead to cervical cancer.