Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ONXX) today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Proteolix, Inc., a privately held biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing novel therapies that target the proteasome for the treatment of hematological malignancies and solid tumors.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Antiviral Drugs Advisory Committee voted (10 to 4) to recommend the approval of Selzentry® (maraviroc) tablets for use in treatment-naïve adult patients with CCR5-tropic HIV-1 virus as part of combination therapy.

Boehringer Ingelheim has repeatedly and clearly stated that patents must not prevent access from life-saving drugs for HIV patients living in resource limited settings. In line with this and in order to accelerate access to anti-retroviral medicines, the company has initiated non-assert declarations in May 2007, well before the idea of the UNITAID patent pool was conceived.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Jiangsu Walvax Biotech Company (Walvax) have announced a cooperation agreement to form a long-term Joint Venture (JV) to develop and manufacture paediatric vaccines for use in China. The JV will produce vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) (Priorix™) and potentially other paediatric vaccines. GSK will also transfer the technology to enable the JV to manufacture the vaccines locally over time.

Sandoz announced the launch of its recombinant human growth hormone somatropin in Japan, the first-ever biosimilar to be approved and launched on the world's second largest pharmaceutical market.

Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (Osaka, Japan, "Takeda") will establish four new commercial subsidiaries covering Mexico, Turkey, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Belgium and Luxembourg. The new subsidiaries - Takeda Pharmaceuticals Mexico, S.A. de C.V., Takeda Pharmaceuticals Trade, LLP (Turkey), Takeda Pharmaceuticals Nordics AB (Sweden), and Takeda Pharmaceuticals Benelux SPRL (Belgium) - are part of Takeda's strategic global expansion efforts.

Initial results from the two-year Phase III FREEDOMS study show that oral FTY720 (fingolimod) was significantly superior to placebo in reducing both relapses and disability progression in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS)[1] - one of the leading causes of neurological disability in young adults[3].