Esperion Therapeutics, Inc. a biopharmaceutical company formed to focus on the discovery and development of compounds to treat cardiovascular and metabolic disease, today announced that it has been launched as a privately held, independent enterprise.

H. Lundbeck A/S and Neurim Pharmaceuticals Ltd. announced that Lundbeck has obtained expanded exclusive rights to commercialize Circadin® in Asia, Latin America and other major markets such as Australia and Turkey. Following regulatory filing and approval Lundbeck expects to market Circadin® in the first markets outside of Europe in 2009.

AstraZeneca today announced submission of a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to seek approval of a new indication for SYMBICORT® (budesonide/formoterol fumarate dihydrate) Inhalation Aerosol for the treatment of patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

Novo Nordisk will donate a licence to its small molecule compound library to the National Center for Drug Screening (NCDS) affiliated to Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The centre will use the library – both the actual compounds and an associated database – for screening activities to identify new drug candidates for infectious tropical diseases that affect people in poor countries.

The European Commission has extended the marketing authorization for Zevalin® ([90Y]-ibritumomab tiuxetan) in Europe. Zevalin can now be used in the course of a first-line therapy after remission induction in previously untreated patients with follicular lymphoma. The aim of such a consolidation therapy is the improvement of the effect of an initial induction therapy.

Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) reported adjusted earnings per share (EPS), excluding stock option expense and certain other expenses, of $1.12 for the first quarter of 2008, an increase of 4 percent compared to $1.08 for the first quarter of 2007. Adjusted net income, excluding stock option expense and certain other expenses, decreased 4 percent to $1,218 million in the first quarter of 2008 compared to $1,270 million in the first quarter of 2007.

Pfizer has entered into a collaboration agreement with four major research universities – University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB); Caltech; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and University of Massachusetts – and Entelos, a physiological modeling company, to re-examine the regulatory mechanisms of human energy metabolism.