FDAnews Drug Daily Bulletin

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has expanded its coverage of Medicare Part B drugs to include Merck's oral, antinausea treatment Emend.

Indian drugmaker, Jubilant Organosys, plans to acquire 75 percent of an unnamed U.S. generic drug company, Jubilant announced.

Faced with looming generic competition on many of its key products, as well as continuing uncertainty over its arthritis pain drugs, Pfizer has initiated a plan to trim annual costs by $4 billion within three years through such measures as plant closings, administrative cutbacks and sales force streamlining.

A federal appeals court has shot down Teva Pharmaceutical's request for a rehearing of its widely watched patent lawsuit over Pfizer's antidepressant Zoloft.

Licensing and acquiring products will be the focus for King Pharmaceuticals Incorporated of Bristol. King president Brian Markison says the company is being transformed following a botched $4 billion merger with Mylan Laboratories Incorporated earlier this year.

Kos Pharmaceuticals and Barr Pharmaceuticals announced that that they have signed co-promotion, licensing and manufacturing, and settlement and license agreements relating to the resolution of the patent litigation involving Kos' Niaspan products.

Seattle Genetics licensed exclusive rights to a potential anticancer therapy from Protein Design Labs Inc. Biotechnology company Seattle Genetics said in a press release Wednesday that it will receive rights to Protein Design's anti-CD33 program for both unconjugated antibody and antibody-drug conjugate applications, associated U.S. patents and patent applications.

Auxilium Pharmaceuticals and Oscient Pharmaceuticals Corporation have signed a co-promotion partnership to promote Auxilium's marketed product, Testim 1 percent testosterone gel, for the treatment of hypogonadism in the U.S., to a significantly larger group of primary care physicians beyond those already called upon by Auxilium.

Xencor announced that Eli Lilly and Company has exercised its option to develop one or more therapeutic proteins created by Xencor under its collaboration with Lilly.

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leading RNAi therapeutics company, and Benitec Ltd., a leading developer of DNA-directed RNA interference therapeutics, announced a licensing agreement covering fundamental intellectual property (IP) in the field of RNA interference (RNAi).

Evotec OAI AG, a leader in integrated high-value-added drug discovery and development, Wednesday said it has extended its global discovery chemistry agreement with Roche Holding signed in May 2004 for a further 12 months. Evotec OAI has a long-standing relationship with Roche.

Questcor Pharmaceuticals, a specialty pharmaceutical company, announced its new business strategy and therapeutic focus. The company will now focus exclusively on developing and commercializing products that treat diseases and disorders of the central nervous system (CNS).