Can They Meet Industry's Interests?
In a recent Pharmaceutical Technology online poll, you—our readers—said Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney would best advance the pharmaceutical industry's interests
(26%) as compared to Senator Hillary Clinton (24%), Senator Barack Obama (16%), Senator John Edwards (11%), Senator John McCain (8%), Mike Huckabee (8%) and Rep. Ron Paul (0%). Now that a series of voting primaries across the nation have narrowed the choices for the national Democratic and Republican
convention delegates, we'd like to hear more from you. We plan to interview the final candidates later this spring. What would
you like us to ask them? Send your questions to adrakulich@advanstar.com
(*At press time, Romney and Edwards had dropped out of the race.)
Facility Roundup
Highlights from the past month's expansion and rationalization announcements.
World Briefs
ASIA & PACIFIC
Tokyo's Eisai acquired MGI Pharma (Bloomington, MN) for approximately $3.9 billion in a cash tender offer followed by a short-form
merger of Eisai's acquisition vehicle, Jaguar Acquisition, with MGI PHARMA. As a result, MGI PHARMA became a wholly owned
subsidiary of Eisai Corporation of North America. • Contract research organization PPD (Wilmington, NC) expanded its laboratory
services into China through an exclusive agreement with Peking Union Lawke Biomedical Development. • Amgen (Thousand Oaks,
CA) is partnering with the Osaka, Japan-based research firm Takeda Pharmaceutical Company to develop and commercialize 13
of Amgen's molecules. Takeda is also acquiring all the shares of Amgen's Japanese subsidiary, Amgen KK. • DuPont (Changshu City, China) hopes to establish a broader fluoroproducts-manufacturing base in China with the opening of a fluoropolymer production plant
in Changshu City.
EUROPE & MIDDLE EAST
Amira Pharmaceuticals (San Diego, CA) and GlaxoSmithKline (Middlesex, United Kingdom) have agreed to develop, manufacture
and commercialize "FLAP" (5-lipoxygenase activating protein) inhibitors for the treatment of respiratory and cardiovascular
disease. • Swiss-based Octapharma will relocate its US headquarters to offices in Hoboken, New Jersey. The company's marketing
and sales operations moved to Virginia in mid-February. • Dr. Willmar Schwabe Pharmaceuticals (Karlsruhe, Germany) intends
to gain access to the United Kingdom market via its recent acquisition of MH Pharma (Marlow, UK). • GE Healthcare (Chalfont
St. Giles, UK) has reached agreement to acquire Whatman (Maidstone, UK), a supplier of filtration products and technologies.
• FDA issued a warning letter to Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics (Cambridge, MA) regarding its Marburg, Germany, facility
for deviations from current good manufacturing practices, including faulty production and process controls, incomplete failure
investigations, and unvalidated cleaning procedures. • PPD (Wilmington, NC) agreed to purchase InnoPharm (Smolensk, Russia),
one of the first CROs in Russia and pioneer of implementing good clinical practice in the former Soviet Union. • Natoli Engineering
(St. Charles, MO) and Casburt TMS (Stoke-on-Trent, UK), a provider of tablet manufacturing solutions, launched Natoli Europe
to cover tablet production, training, and production optimization through the development of a UK-based "Center of Excellence."
LATIN & SOUTH AMERICA
MDS Pharma Services (King of Prussia, PA) established an office in São Paulo, Brazil. The new office is part of the company's nearly two dozen other late-stage clinical trial management offices in 21 countries
in Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and North America.
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