Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY) announced a donation of $6.9 million in 2011 to support the HealthWell Foundation, an independent non-profit organization that provides financial assistance to eligible individuals to cover coinsurance, copayments, healthcare premiums and deductibles for certain treatments. The donation was made to HealthWell’s co-pay assistance funds to help underinsured cancer patients with their out-of-pocket disease related expenses that are not covered by their insurance plans, regardless of treatment selected. “Bristol-Myers Squibb has robust patient assistance programs for cancer patients and this contribution reinforces our commitment to helping patients gain access to the medicines they need,” said John…
Author: Rajeev Singla
They are the Robinson Crusoes of the intracellular world – lone chromosomes, whole and hardy, stranded outside the nucleus where their fellow chromosomes reside. Such castaways, each confined to its own “micronucleus,” are often found in cancer cells, but scientists haven’t known what role, if any, they play in the cancer process. In a paper published online on Jan. 18 by the journal Nature, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers have mapped out a mechanism by which micronuclei could potentially disrupt the chromosomes within them and produce cancer-causing gene mutations. The findings may point to a vulnerability in cancer cells that could…
In order for this article to make sense to those of you who haven’t read the first installment of this 2-part series, it would be wise to read this and this first. It was an interesting and fun week for me, having the $50k Challenge to contend with in addition to my higher-priority personal and professional responsibilities. Needless to say, I had to put my usual Seeking Alpha contributions on hold, as the week simply would not permit. I’d like to start off by saying: Woo-hoo! I did it, and then some (the picture is a gag intended for the…
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY) and Inhibitex, Inc. (Nasdaq:INHX) have signed a definitive agreement under which Bristol-Myers Squibb will acquire Inhibitex for $26.00 per share in cash pursuant to a cash tender offer and second step merger. The transaction, with an aggregate purchase price of approximately $2.5 billion, has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies. The board of directors of Inhibitex has agreed to recommend that Inhibitex’s shareholders tender their shares in the tender offer. In addition, shareholders with beneficial ownership of approximately 17% of Inhibitex’s common stock have entered into agreements with Bristol-Myers Squibb to support…
AstraZeneca has entered into a three-year collaboration agreement with IMS Health, the leading provider of information, services and technology for the healthcare sector, to advance the use of real-world evidence based on observational and retrospective studies throughout Europe to inform the delivery of effective and cost-efficient healthcare. The partnership with IMS Health will give AstraZeneca access to pre-existing anonymised electronic health records, which include clinical outcome, economic and treatment pattern data. In addition, the companies will jointly develop a customised research and data analysis platform. The information will provide a deeper insight into how medicines that are already on the…
The chemotherapy drugs required to push a common form of adult leukemia into remission may contribute to DNA damage that can lead to a relapse of the disease in some patients, findings of a new study suggest. The research, by a team of physicians and scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is published Jan. 11 in the advance online edition of Nature. For patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), initial treatment with chemotherapy is essential for putting the cancer into remission. Without it, most patients would die within several months. But even so, about 80 percent…
A research collaboration between the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Children’s Hospital Boston has developed “smart” injectable nanotherapeutics that can be programmed to selectively deliver drugs to the cells of the pancreas. Although this nanotechnology will need significant additional testing and development before being ready for clinical use, it could potentially improve treatment for Type I diabetes by increasing therapeutic efficacy and reducing side effects. The approach was found to increase drug efficacy by 200-fold in in vitro studies based on the ability of these nanomaterials to both protect the drug from degradation and concentrate…
Our family is now enriched with two more dignitaries. 1. Dr. Shankar Swaminathan, Hamilton Eye Institute, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, USA 2. Dr. Idress Hamad Attitalla, Faculty of Science , Omar Al-Mukhtar University , A-Bayda, Libya Sir, we welcome you both in our committee. Thanks & Regards, Rajeev K Singla Editor-in-Chief
International Year of Chemistry Recognized with Report on Changing Role of Drug Discovery Chemist & Process PHILADELPHIA and LONDON, Dec. 22, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — In recognition of the International Year of Chemistry 2011, Thomson Reuters published a research report analyzing The Changing Role of Chemistry in Drug Discovery. By tracking pharmaceutical industry data over the last decade along with insights from industry experts, the new report forecasts the end of the blockbuster drug era. In its place, the report suggests, a much more targeted, patient-specific approach will define the next decade for the pharmaceutical industry and the patients it serves. (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20111222/NY26822 ) Leveraging data and analytics…