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Careful attention to detail will help to prevent valuable assets from "melting" away.

Bristol-Myers Squibb has agreed to acquire the biopharmaceutical company Amylin Pharmaceuticals for a purchase price of $5.3 billion and an additional $1.7 billion for assuming Amylin's net debt and a contractual payment obligation to Eli Lilly based on Amylin's recently terminated agreement with Eli Lilly over the diabetes drug exenatide.

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Future Innovation

Presidents of leading associations offer views on the industry's future.

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Parallel trade has frustrated pharmaceutical manufacturers for years and now evidence has linked such trade to drug shortages in Europe. Parallel trade representatives have yet to respond, but will need to react quickly to salvage their reputation.

The European Medicines Agency has launched an investigation into Roche after an inspection found that thousands of potential safety reports, including 15161 deaths, connected to Roche medicines had not been evaluated to determine whether they should be reported to regulators as adverse drug reactions.

FDA has updated its website to include the latest Warning Letters issued to pharmaceutical companies by the Office of Prescription Drug Promotion and the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

My application uses a peristaltic pump with silicone tubing running through it and a different, heat-sealable tubing material before and after the pump section. Recently, an operator installed the wrong section of tubing in a pump, resulting in lost API, equipment replacement, and hours of extra work. How can we avoid this kind of mix-up in the future?

The European Medicines Agency's Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products made recommendations for nine orphan drug designations during its June 2012 meeting. Included in COMP's recommendations were four designation applications for rare forms of lipodystrophy.

The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations has called for the German government to take "urgent action" regarding its pricing system, which is perceived as hindering the market entry of new, innovative medicines in the country.

The National Institutes of Health have gained the participation of Abbott, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen Pharmaceutical Research & Development, and Sanofi in their effort to advance new therapeutic research.