Yesterday at INTERPHEX, attendees had the opportunity to meet representatives from the category winners of the Facility of the Year Awards (FOYA) at a reception. The awards program, now in its fifth year, recognizes companies that advance pharmaceutical manufacturing technology. Read more »

Ending nearly eight months of negotiations, Roche and Genentech agreed yesterday on a price of $95 per share in cash (approximately $46.8 billion) for Roche to acquire the 44% of Genentech it doesn’t already own. Read more »

As Roche promised earlier this month, it commenced a tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Genentech it doesn’t own for $86.50 cash per share. And as Genentech promised, it evaluated the offer and issued a statement to stockholders on Monday. As expected, Genentech rejected the offer. Read more »

As my colleague recently mentioned, new doesn’t always mean better. That became true last week for anyone waiting for a new offer from Roche to acquire Genentech. Roche announced its new plan to buy the company last Friday: Roche will approach Genentech’s shareholders directly with an offer of $86.50 per share or $42 billion. Read more »

Key results from a colon cancer study of Genentech’s Avastin (bevacizumab) could be available in April, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Genentech previously said results would be available mid-year. The drug is currently approved to treat breast and lung cancer, and it’s a first- and second-line treatment for metastatic colorectal cancer. Read more »

Last month, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and the Rockefeller Foundation announced a challenge to HIV/AIDS scientists: design an AIDS-fighting protein to win $150,000. The winning protein design and sample will advance HIV vaccine development, and the winning researchers could receive a bonus of up to $1 million and/or the chance to pursue their research further with help from IAVI. Read more »

Innovation used to be a term dedicated to a company’s visions for growth. Keeping one eye on the roots of your business and the other on long-term prospects was a smart strategy. Against a backdrop of a nose-diving economy, however, it seems as if “innovation” now has less to do with growth and more to do with survival. Read more »

Last week’s post highlighted pharma deals that haven’t been working out due to rejected bids and stalled negotiations. On a more positive note, the past several months have also seen some successful acquisitions. This past week produced updates to some of Big Pharma’s pending pacts. Read more »

The past several months have seen many successful merger and acquisition announcements come and go, but for some companies, this has hardly been a summer of love. Several of Big Pharma’s big offers have been rejected, and some of these stories are still playing out. Only time will tell what the future holds for these proposed deals and sometimes troubled partnerships. Read more »

When I was in school, HIV/AIDS education was part of the health curriculum. I sat with my middle-, and then, high-school classmates and we learned about AIDS prevention, wore red ribbons, watched the made-for-TV movie The Ryan White Story, and attended school-wide AIDS awareness presentations by people living with HIV. All the time knowing scientists were hard at work finding a cure. Read more »