AstraZeneca seen frontrunner to buy Acadia drug

(Reuters) - LONDON, July 20 - AstraZeneca Plc is a frontrunner to buy rights to U.S-based Acadia Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s experimental schizophrenia drug pimavanserin, the Anglo-Swedish group's house broker said on Friday.



Mark Purcell, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, believes AstraZeneca is in a strong position to license the product, which is also known as ACP-103, in the second half of this year.


Read more at Reuters.com Mergers News

Brinker, CytRx, Cummins, Isis, KBR, SanDisk, Tyco: U.S. Equity Movers

(Bloomberg) -- The following is a list of companies
whose shares are having unusual price changes in U.S. exchanges
today. Stock symbols are in parentheses after company names.
Share prices are as of 2:40 p.m. New York time.

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ALNY US) rose $8.20, or 54
percent, to $23.40. Roche Holding AG (ROG VX), the world's
biggest maker of cancer medicines, may pay as much as $1 billion
for rights to Alnylam technology that may allow the companies to
find new tumor, liver and breathing treatments.


Read more at Bloomberg Stocks News

Roche backs RNAi research with $1 bln Alnylam deal

(Reuters) - LONDON/ZURICH, July 9 - Roche Holding AG has signed a deal worth up to $1 billion with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. , giving it access to the U.S. firm's skills in the new science of RNA interference.



The agreement is the largest drug discovery partnership in the field to date and a further vindication of the emerging area of biotechnology research, which involves blocking disease-causing proteins.


Read more at Reuters.com Mergers News

EU experts recommend biosimilar anaemia drugs

(Reuters) - By Ben Hirschler, European Pharmaceuticals Correspondent



LONDON, June 22 - Europe accelerated its adoption of so-called biosimilar medicines on Friday as an expert panel recommended the approval of three cut-price versions of epoetin alfa, or EPO, for treating anaemia.


Read more at Reuters.com Government Filings News