The new year was ushered in amidst economic uncertainties and the impending inauguration of a new administration - the effects of which have great implications for the pharmaceutical industry. Brand managers especially will feel the heat as marketing spend and measurement is increasingly scrutinized. But despite the doom and gloom in predictions for the year ahead, physicians and patients will continue to use healthcare products and services and companies still need to find ways to effectively reach their target audiences.

EU-funded researchers have uncovered some of the complex molecular mechanisms that drive the growth of neuroblastoma, a type of cancer found in very young children. The scientists hope that their findings, published in the journal Cancer Cell, will lead to the development of new therapies to treat this often aggressive and unpredictable disease.

PharmaNews.eu, an advanced web based news project targeting the European pharmaceutical domain, has been launched. The project was developed to directly connect, promote and disseminate the European Industry and Research pharmaceutical achievements with additional focus on the European Commission (EC) and European Medicines Agency (EMEA) news.

Nearly 40 million U.S. adults decided not to fill a prescription medication from a doctor in the past year because of the cost, according to pharmaceutical and healthcare market research company Manhattan Research’s Cybercitizen Health™ v8.0 consumer study and strategic advisory service.

Transinsight has announced the launch of GoPubMed.com version 4.0, the semantic search engine for the life sciences with significantly improved features.

• Increased Speed: GoPubMed 4.0 is ten times faster than its predecessor, now handling millions of documents in seconds.

Finnish scientists have reported a breakthrough in the attempts to understand the development of type 1 diabetes. They discovered disturbances in lipid and amino acid metabolism in children who later progressed to type 1 diabetes, also known as juvenile diabetes. The alterations preceded the autoimmune response by months to years.

In the framework of the development scheme 'Central Innovation Scheme for Medium-sized Businesses' of the German Federal Ministry for Economics and Technology (BMWI), clinIT AG, based in Freiburg, Germany, has been awarded a six-figure federal grant in cooperation with the Institute for Informatics of the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Faculty for Data Bases and Information Systems.