Pharma News

(10th July, 2014); On 9th July 2014, the European Commission (the EU’s top competition regulator) decided to impose a wholly unjustified fine on Niche /Unichem (jointly and severally) contending that it had acted in breach of EU Antitrust Rules. The European Commission reached this conclusion because its subsidiary, Niche Generics Ltd (Niche), agreed to settle financially crippling patent litigation with Laboratories Servier (Servier) at the beginning of 2005.

(Business Wire India; 10th July, 2014); Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG) announced results of its phase III POSTURE study evaluating OTEZLA, the company’s oral, selective inhibitor of phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4), in patients with active ankylosing spondylitis. The OTEZLA arms did not achieve statistically significant improvement versus the placebo arm for the primary endpoint, the percentage of patients who achieve an ASAS (Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society) 20 response at week 16. However, in a prespecified analysis, meaningful efficacy was observed at Week 24 in a large subset of patients with early-stage disease. Evaluation of the efficacy results is ongoing.

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(9th July, 2014); The meeting of the apex committee held on 17-06-2014 under the chairmanship secretary  of health and family welfare for supervising clinical trials (CTs) on new chemical entities in the light of directions of the honorable supreme court of India dated 03.01.2013

(Business Wire India; 9th July, 2014); HealthCare Global Enterprises Ltd, The Specialist in Cancer Care, organized a press conference on the topic cancer patients suffer due to non availability of drugs.

(8th July, 2014); Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Health Minister, has formed a core group to plan a detailed plan of action to eradicate the dreaded vector-borne disease Kala Azar by 2015.

(8th July, 2014); Health Ministry of India finalized that if any drug banned by two or more countries and it is still being marketed in India, they may possibly remove the drug from the Indian market after proper examination or appropriate action will be taken.

(3rd July, 2014); Four new vaccines are introduced as part of India’s Universal Immunization Programme (UIP), announced by Shri Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India. Vaccines against rotavirus, rubella and polio (injectable) will collectively expedite India’s progress on meeting the Millennium Development Goal 4 targets to reduce child mortality by two-thirds by the year 2015 and meet global polio eradication targets. In addition, an adult vaccine against Japanese encephalitis will be introduced in districts with high levels of the disease.