J&J to buy breast implant firm Mentor for $1.1 bln

piggy submitted, created time 1 month 5 days (www.reuters.com)

Johnson & Johnson will buy breast implant maker Mentor Corp for $1.07 billion as the diversified healthcare giant pushes into the market for cosmetic medical procedures.

J&J's tender offer for Mentor, announced on Monday, is $31 per share, a 92 percent premium to Mentor's closing price on Friday, although the shares traded above $40 at the start of 2008.

The acquisition underscores the interest in the market for plastic surgery and other aesthetic procedures even at a time when the rocky global economy may limit consumers' ability to pursue such options.

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AstraZeneca, Abraxis set to end cancer drug deal

piggy submitted, created time 1 month 1 week (www.reuters.com)

AstraZeneca Plc is set to end a two-year-old breast cancer drug deal with U.S.-based Abraxis BioScience Inc, the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker said on Tuesday.
The termination of the co-promotion agreement for Abraxane -- if approved by the Abraxis board in January -- will result in the payment of a fee of $268 million to AstraZeneca on March 31, 2009.

AstraZeneca paid $200 million to acquire rights to Abraxane in the United States in April 2006 and said at the time it believed the product could become a major seller. It generated modest sales of $62 million for AstraZeneca in 2007

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Johnson & Johnson to acquire Israel's Omrix for $465 million

piggy submitted, created time 1 month 1 week (www.reuters.com)

Johnson & Johnson Inc will acquire Israel's Omrix Biopharmaceuticals Inc for $27 a share, or a total of $465 million, the Globes financial news website said on Monday.

Omrix, which makes biosurgical sealants for the prevention of bleeding, or homeostasis, in surgery, is a partner of Johnson & Johnson unit Ethicon.
Ethicon has exclusive sales and marketing rights to Omrix's biosurgical products in the United States and the European Union.

A team from Ethicon was in Israel at the end of last week reviewing the company, the Globes report said

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VioQuest Pharmaceuticals Provides Strategic Alternatives Review, Announces Need for Capital and Possible Resignation of CEO, VP

sea-maid submitted, created time 2 months 1 week (www.fiercebiotech.com)

VioQuest Pharmaceuticalstoday provided a strategic alternatives review and operations update.

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BioTie Therapies Inc. to Acquire Neurology and Immunology Focused Pharmaceutical Company Elbion GmbH

sea-maid submitted, created time 2 months 1 week (www.fiercebiotech.com)

BioTie Therapies has today entered into an agreement to acquire the German pharmaceutical company elbion GmbH. The combination of the two businesses will take place by a share exchange and create a leading European company in the field of discovery and development of therapeutics for central nervous system (addiction, psychotic disorders) and inflammatory diseases (e.g. rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and inflammatory diseseas of the respiratory system). elbion GmbH will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of BioTie.

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Ark floats gene therapy's boat, for now

sea-maid submitted, created time 2 months 1 week (www.nature.com)

In August, gene therapy's turbulent ride through the clinical rapids took a new twist as Ark Therapeutics released positive top-line results from a phase 3 trial of its adenoviral gene therapy Cerepro (sitimagene ceradenovec) for malignant brain tumors. Although the news boosted the London-based firm's shares, the course to market authorization and registration remains strewn with uncertainty—as Introgen, of Austin, Texas, found, to its cost, when the U.S

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