Science 8 November 2013:
Vol. 342 no. 6159 p. 680
DOI: 10.1126/science.342.6159.680 Intellectual Property Sequenom's 2001 patent on a method of isolating fetal DNA from a mother's bloodstream to test for Down syndrome was thrown out by a U.S. court in San Francisco. Judge Susan Illston rested her decision in part on the recent Supreme Court ruling that natural phenomena like genes cannot be patented. Illston also wrote that Sequenom's patented idea was not sufficiently inventive.
Showing posts with label market. Show all posts
Showing posts with label market. Show all posts
Thursday, November 14, 2013
[News & Analysis] Intellectual Property: California Moves Shake Up Prenatal Gene Testing Market
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Z drugs keep sleep-aid market awake
With almost a third of Americans reporting sleep problems, it's not surprising that sales of Ambien, Sonata and similar sleep aids are high: It's a $1.8 billion market.
Pharmacists filled close to 48 million prescriptions for such non-benzodiazepines - or "Z drugs," so nicknamed because most of their chemical names start with the letter Z - in 2009, according to health-care research company IMS Health. That's more than twice as many as were filled in 2002.
"Everyone is looking for something to help them sleep," said Lawrence Epstein, an instructor at Harvard Medical School and medical director of Sleep HealthCenters, a network of medical centers and clinics for people with sleep disorders.
Z drugs - Ambien was the first to reach the U.S. market, in 1992 - are less likely to cause dependency and side effects than the older generation of benzodiazepines such as Ativan and Dalmane. Both classes of drugs activate the neurotransmitter that induces sleep, the gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptor complex.
But the benzodiazepines also relax muscles and reduce anxiety - effects that can be beneficial but have the potential to cause respiratory failure and other muscle-related problems. And they often left users feeling drowsy for hours after awakening.
Z drugs are more targeted; designed to activate a specific part of the GABA complex, they get you to sleep with fewer concerns about dependency and side effects.
Analysts expect patients to use more prescription sleep aids as generic versions of Z drugs continue to emerge.
A generic, less expensive form of Ambien (zolpidem tartrate) went on the market in 2005 and instantly "became a 'best-buy' drug from a safety, effectiveness and affordability point of view," said Jon Schommer, a professor at the University of Minnesota's College of Pharmacy in Minneapolis. In October 2010, a generic version of Ambien CR was introduced. Generic Lunesta is expected to hit the market next year.
Most Z drugs get you to sleep in less than an hour, according to the 2008 Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs analysis, and their effects last at least four hours. Market leaders Ambien, Ambien CR and Lunesta can sustain sleep as long as six to eight hours. Epstein said both new and old classes of sleep aids add only 20 to 30 minutes to a night's sleep, on average, but even that amount makes most people feel more rested.
If you take one of these aids, doctors recommend you go to bed immediately and allow enough time to rest. After actor John Stamos appeared to be drunk on an Australian talk show in June 2007, he said he had taken a morning dose of Ambien to help with his jet lag.
"Now I know that Ambien is an eight-hour sleeping pill, so if you take it, you better get eight hours' sleep," Stamos told TV Guide.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved Ambien and Sonata for short-term treatment of insomnia, up to five weeks. Lunesta and Ambien CR are approved for long-term use, up to six months.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
REFILE-UPDATE 3-Intel foresees Q2 sales decline as PC market shrinks
* Trims capex plans for 2013
* Maintains full-year revenue forecast
* Shares edge lower
By Noel Randewich
SAN FRANCISCO, April 16 (Reuters) - Intel Corp said its current-quarter revenue would decline as much as 8 percent and trimmed its 2013 capital spending plans, as personal computer sales drop due to the growing popularity of tablets and smartphones.
Shares in the world's largest chip maker rallied as much as 3 percent after hours but quickly gave up the gains. The stock had been battered over the past week after researcher IDC revealed that PC sales notched a record quarterly decline in the first quarter.
Despite persistently weak demand for PCs, Intel held firm on its previous forecast that 2013 revenue would grow by a low single-digit percentage, a target some analysts believe is becoming more difficult to hit.
Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith told analysts on a conference call after Intel's earnings report on Tuesday that its upcoming Haswell chip, as well as new ultrathin laptops and an improving economy, would revive growth in the second half of the year.
"That scares the hell out of me. They are holding to the same ultra-bullish forecast they gave before," said Stacy Rasgon, an analyst at Bernstein Research. "They are presumably pretty bullish on the new products they are planning."
Personal computer sales plunged 14 percent in the first three months of the year, the biggest decline in the two decades on record, as tablets grew more popular and buyers seemed to be avoiding Microsoft Corp's new Windows 8 operating system, according to IDC.
Under pressure, Intel also said in its quarterly news release on Tuesday that it was reducing 2013 capital spending from $13 billion to $12 billion, plus or minus $500 million.
STICKING TO THEIR GUNS
Intel said its first-quarter revenue fell to $12.58 billion from $12.91 billion in the year-ago quarter.
The world's largest chipmaker forecast June-quarter revenue of $12.9 billion, plus or minus $500 million. Compared to the second quarter of last year, that amounts to roughly no change or a drop of as much as 8 percent.
Analysts had expected $12.588 billion in revenue for the first quarter and $12.854 billion for the June quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Intel posted first-quarter net income of $2.04 billion, or 40 cents a share, down from $2.74 billion, or 55 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Analysts on average had expected 41 cents per share.
"These numbers are not very solid, but the second-quarter guidance is better than feared. Conditions are probably not as bad as industry reports have suggested recently," said Doug Freedman, an analyst at RBC Capital.
Shares of Intel edged down less than 1 percent in extended trade after closing up 2.5 percent at $21.91 on Nasdaq.
Companies jockey for position in changing U.S. space market
By Andrea Shalal-Esa
WASHINGTON | Fri Apr 12, 2013 5:35pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Space companies are shifting strategies to benefit from a change in how the U.S. government buys satellites, rockets and space services.
After years of billion-dollar cost overruns and schedule delays on complex satellite programs, U.S. officials are looking for smaller, less expensive spacecraft and exploring alternatives such pay-for-service deals, or packing sensors on government or commercial satellites.
Air Force General Robert Kehler, who heads the military command that oversees U.S. nuclear, satellite and cyber operations, warned thousands of top industry executives this week that big-ticket space programs would be reevaluated as part of a 60-day review ordered by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.
"There is no doubt that our space-based systems are expensive and will be part of that review," he said at the week-long National Space Symposium, which brought together over 9,000 experts from across the industry.
"Regardless of the outcome, we must find ways to drive costs down as we look to the future."
The White House budget proposal for fiscal 2014 includes $8 billion for unclassified space programs, about the same as this year, and billions more for additional programs in the "black world," but officials are forecasting deeper cuts in 2015.
Brigadier General Roger Teague, director of strategic plans at The Air Force Space Command, told the conference that his office had already cut costs by $985 million by reducing staffing, testing and production costs, and was targeting additional cuts of $600 million across 20 programs this year.
INDUSTRY CHANGES TACTICS
The shift is changing the way big players like Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co, Northrop Grumman Corp, and smaller firms like Orbital Sciences Corp, ITT Exelis Corp, Harris Corp and Alliant Techsystems Inc map out future business plans.
"If we keep doing things the same way and expect different results in this environment, that's not going to work," said retired Lieutenant General Trey Obering, the former director of the Missile Defense Agency who now works for consulting firm Booz Allen.
Rick Ambrose, who heads space programs for Lockheed, which is building new large missile warning, protected communications and global positioning satellites for the Air Force, said Lockheed is bracing for further declines in Pentagon spending.
He said the Pentagon was likely to stick to the existing programs for core missions, such as missile warning, targeting and protected communications, all contracts held by Lockheed, even as it explores new options. But all firms were under pressure to innovate, accelerate schedules and cut costs.
Ambrose said Lockheed's space division was halfway to its goal of consolidating 1.5 million square feet of facilities and would have reduced overhead by $300 million this year.
Lockheed also builds smaller satellites, and is taking part in Air Force studies about different approaches, but Ambrose warned against rushing headlong into new acquisition programs.
He said that approach backfired during the last drawdown, when the Pentagon curtailed existing programs before leap-ahead programs matured, leaving gaps in some important capabilities.
"If you're a wing walker you never let go of a rung until you grab the next rung," he said.
SPACEX VS BOEING
Lockheed and Boeing also face competition for the biggest rockets, with the Air Force laying the groundwork for new entrants like Space Exploration (SpaceX) and Orbital Sciences.
Boeing is rapidly expanding its commercial satellite orders after losing out to Lockheed on some bigger military contracts, but sees good opportunities for its new line of smaller satellites and the prospect of hosting sensors on its wideband communications satellites in coming years.
"It's clear that they want to move away from these big mega-programs that cost a lot of money and find cheaper solutions," Craig Cooning, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems told Reuters, citing space situational awareness and communications as promising areas.
"If you look at our business overall, we have recognized the changes in the marketplace and we have adapted for that," he said, adding that Boeing delivered 11 satellites last year and was on track to deliver 10 more this year.
The Air Force is wrapping up an analysis of alternatives for a next-generation weather satellite this summer that will likely include several of the new approaches.
Companies like Harris and Orbital Sciences are promoting the use of "hosted payloads" in which sensors are packed aboard other satellites, although government and industry officials say some technical and policy issues must still be worked out.
Harris is working with Iridium Communications on the largest hosted payload deal to date, an aircraft-tracking venture to kick off in 2015 that it says will save airlines money but also holds promise for U.S. government missions.
Meanwhile, Inmarsat PLC is getting ready to launch its new Global Express communications satellites, which it says will offer comprehensive mobile broadband services to a variety of users, including the U.S. military.
Obering said the new environment presented opportunities, but the Pentagon needed to revamp its acquisition processes to realize the benefits of technological advances in industry.
One model could be the way the Missile Defense Agency had been freed from some budget processes to rapidly develop missile defense capabilities, Obering said.
"We have to fundamentally change our acquisition approaches to do that. We have to be able to move at the speed of industry to be able to take full advantage of what ... the commercial market will be offering in the coming years," he said.
(Reporting By Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Alwyn Scott and Andrew Hay)
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Market Chatter-Corporate finance press digest
April 11 | Wed Apr 10, 2013 11:43pm EDT
April 11 (Reuters) - The following corporate finance-related stories were reported by media on Thursday:
* For the second year in a row, Goldman Sachs Group Inc fended off a shareholder proposal that could have led to a messy public vote to strip Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein of his chairman's title.
* Carlyle Group LP has hired a former UBS banker to launch an Indonesia office, people with direct knowledge of the matter said, becoming the first major private equity firm to set up shop on its own in Southeast Asia's largest economy.
* A private equity consortium bid $65 per share, or $11.1 billion, for Life Technologies Corp, but fell short of a rival offer from Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, two people familiar with the matter said.
* Spain's Telefonica is planning a partial listing of its Colombian business to help it cut debt, Spanish online news site El Confidencial reported, citing financial sources.
* Russian mining and steel group Mechel said it has been in negotiations with potential buyers about disposing of a minority stake in its Mechel Mining unit, Chief Financial Officer Stanislav Ploschenko said.
Market Chatter-Corporate finance press digest
April 11 | Wed Apr 10, 2013 11:43pm EDT
April 11 (Reuters) - The following corporate finance-related stories were reported by media on Thursday:
* For the second year in a row, Goldman Sachs Group Inc fended off a shareholder proposal that could have led to a messy public vote to strip Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein of his chairman's title.
* Carlyle Group LP has hired a former UBS banker to launch an Indonesia office, people with direct knowledge of the matter said, becoming the first major private equity firm to set up shop on its own in Southeast Asia's largest economy.
* A private equity consortium bid $65 per share, or $11.1 billion, for Life Technologies Corp, but fell short of a rival offer from Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, two people familiar with the matter said.
* Spain's Telefonica is planning a partial listing of its Colombian business to help it cut debt, Spanish online news site El Confidencial reported, citing financial sources.
* Russian mining and steel group Mechel said it has been in negotiations with potential buyers about disposing of a minority stake in its Mechel Mining unit, Chief Financial Officer Stanislav Ploschenko said.
Market Chatter-Corporate finance press digest
April 11 | Wed Apr 10, 2013 11:43pm EDT
April 11 (Reuters) - The following corporate finance-related stories were reported by media on Thursday:
* For the second year in a row, Goldman Sachs Group Inc fended off a shareholder proposal that could have led to a messy public vote to strip Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein of his chairman's title.
* Carlyle Group LP has hired a former UBS banker to launch an Indonesia office, people with direct knowledge of the matter said, becoming the first major private equity firm to set up shop on its own in Southeast Asia's largest economy.
* A private equity consortium bid $65 per share, or $11.1 billion, for Life Technologies Corp, but fell short of a rival offer from Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, two people familiar with the matter said.
* Spain's Telefonica is planning a partial listing of its Colombian business to help it cut debt, Spanish online news site El Confidencial reported, citing financial sources.
* Russian mining and steel group Mechel said it has been in negotiations with potential buyers about disposing of a minority stake in its Mechel Mining unit, Chief Financial Officer Stanislav Ploschenko said.
Market Chatter-Corporate finance press digest
April 11 | Wed Apr 10, 2013 11:43pm EDT
April 11 (Reuters) - The following corporate finance-related stories were reported by media on Thursday:
* For the second year in a row, Goldman Sachs Group Inc fended off a shareholder proposal that could have led to a messy public vote to strip Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein of his chairman's title.
* Carlyle Group LP has hired a former UBS banker to launch an Indonesia office, people with direct knowledge of the matter said, becoming the first major private equity firm to set up shop on its own in Southeast Asia's largest economy.
* A private equity consortium bid $65 per share, or $11.1 billion, for Life Technologies Corp, but fell short of a rival offer from Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, two people familiar with the matter said.
* Spain's Telefonica is planning a partial listing of its Colombian business to help it cut debt, Spanish online news site El Confidencial reported, citing financial sources.
* Russian mining and steel group Mechel said it has been in negotiations with potential buyers about disposing of a minority stake in its Mechel Mining unit, Chief Financial Officer Stanislav Ploschenko said.
Market Chatter-Corporate finance press digest
April 11 | Wed Apr 10, 2013 11:43pm EDT
April 11 (Reuters) - The following corporate finance-related stories were reported by media on Thursday:
* For the second year in a row, Goldman Sachs Group Inc fended off a shareholder proposal that could have led to a messy public vote to strip Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein of his chairman's title.
* Carlyle Group LP has hired a former UBS banker to launch an Indonesia office, people with direct knowledge of the matter said, becoming the first major private equity firm to set up shop on its own in Southeast Asia's largest economy.
* A private equity consortium bid $65 per share, or $11.1 billion, for Life Technologies Corp, but fell short of a rival offer from Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, two people familiar with the matter said.
* Spain's Telefonica is planning a partial listing of its Colombian business to help it cut debt, Spanish online news site El Confidencial reported, citing financial sources.
* Russian mining and steel group Mechel said it has been in negotiations with potential buyers about disposing of a minority stake in its Mechel Mining unit, Chief Financial Officer Stanislav Ploschenko said.
Market Chatter-Corporate finance press digest
April 11 | Wed Apr 10, 2013 11:43pm EDT
April 11 (Reuters) - The following corporate finance-related stories were reported by media on Thursday:
* For the second year in a row, Goldman Sachs Group Inc fended off a shareholder proposal that could have led to a messy public vote to strip Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein of his chairman's title.
* Carlyle Group LP has hired a former UBS banker to launch an Indonesia office, people with direct knowledge of the matter said, becoming the first major private equity firm to set up shop on its own in Southeast Asia's largest economy.
* A private equity consortium bid $65 per share, or $11.1 billion, for Life Technologies Corp, but fell short of a rival offer from Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, two people familiar with the matter said.
* Spain's Telefonica is planning a partial listing of its Colombian business to help it cut debt, Spanish online news site El Confidencial reported, citing financial sources.
* Russian mining and steel group Mechel said it has been in negotiations with potential buyers about disposing of a minority stake in its Mechel Mining unit, Chief Financial Officer Stanislav Ploschenko said.
Market Chatter-Corporate finance press digest
April 11 | Wed Apr 10, 2013 11:43pm EDT
April 11 (Reuters) - The following corporate finance-related stories were reported by media on Thursday:
* For the second year in a row, Goldman Sachs Group Inc fended off a shareholder proposal that could have led to a messy public vote to strip Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein of his chairman's title.
* Carlyle Group LP has hired a former UBS banker to launch an Indonesia office, people with direct knowledge of the matter said, becoming the first major private equity firm to set up shop on its own in Southeast Asia's largest economy.
* A private equity consortium bid $65 per share, or $11.1 billion, for Life Technologies Corp, but fell short of a rival offer from Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, two people familiar with the matter said.
* Spain's Telefonica is planning a partial listing of its Colombian business to help it cut debt, Spanish online news site El Confidencial reported, citing financial sources.
* Russian mining and steel group Mechel said it has been in negotiations with potential buyers about disposing of a minority stake in its Mechel Mining unit, Chief Financial Officer Stanislav Ploschenko said.
Market Chatter-Corporate finance press digest
April 11 | Wed Apr 10, 2013 11:43pm EDT
April 11 (Reuters) - The following corporate finance-related stories were reported by media on Thursday:
* For the second year in a row, Goldman Sachs Group Inc fended off a shareholder proposal that could have led to a messy public vote to strip Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein of his chairman's title.
* Carlyle Group LP has hired a former UBS banker to launch an Indonesia office, people with direct knowledge of the matter said, becoming the first major private equity firm to set up shop on its own in Southeast Asia's largest economy.
* A private equity consortium bid $65 per share, or $11.1 billion, for Life Technologies Corp, but fell short of a rival offer from Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, two people familiar with the matter said.
* Spain's Telefonica is planning a partial listing of its Colombian business to help it cut debt, Spanish online news site El Confidencial reported, citing financial sources.
* Russian mining and steel group Mechel said it has been in negotiations with potential buyers about disposing of a minority stake in its Mechel Mining unit, Chief Financial Officer Stanislav Ploschenko said.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
New method for uncovering side effects before a drug hits the market
Side effects are a major reason that drugs are taken off the market and a major reason why patients stop taking their medications, but scientists are now reporting the development of a new way to predict those adverse reactions ahead of time. The report on the method, which could save patients from severe side effects and save drug companies time and money, appears in ACS' Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling. 
Yoshihiro Yamanishi and colleagues explain that drug side effects are a major health problem—the fourth-leading cause of death in the U.S.—which by some estimates claim 100,000 lives every year. Serious side effects are the main reason why existing drugs must be removed from the market and why pharmaceutical companies halt development of new drugs after investing millions of dollars. Current methods of testing for side effects are costly and inaccurate. That's why the scientists sought to develop a new computer-based approach to predicting possible side effects.
They show the usefulness of their proposed method on simultaneous prediction of 969 side effects of 658 drugs that already are in wide medical use. The method is based on knowledge about chemical and biological information about ingredients in these medications. They also used the approach to identify possible side effects for many uncharacterized molecules. Based on that work, the scientists conclude that the new method could be helpful in uncovering serious side effects early in the development and testing of new drugs, avoiding costly investment in medications unsuitable for marketing.
More information: Drug Side-Effect Prediction Based on the Integration of Chemical and Biological Spaces, J. Chem. Inf. Model., 2012, 52 (12), pp 3284–3292. DOI: 10.1021/ci2005548
Abstract
Drug side-effects, or adverse drug reactions, have become a major public health concern and remain one of the main causes of drug failure and of drug withdrawal once they have reached the market. Therefore, the identification of potential severe side-effects is a challenging issue. In this paper, we develop a new method to predict potential side-effect profiles of drug candidate molecules based on their chemical structures and target protein information on a large scale. We propose several extensions of kernel regression model for multiple responses to deal with heterogeneous data sources. The originality lies in the integration of the chemical space of drug chemical structures and the biological space of drug target proteins in a unified framework. As a result, we demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed method on the simultaneous prediction of 969 side-effects for approved drugs from their chemical substructure and target protein profiles and show that the prediction accuracy consistently improves owing to the proposed regression model and integration of chemical and biological information. We also conduct a comprehensive side-effect prediction for uncharacterized drug molecules stored in DrugBank and confirm interesting predictions using independent information sources. The proposed method is expected to be useful at many stages of the drug development process.
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