> Cancer treatments are on track to become the biggest driver of specialty pharmacy spending as its contribution to overall drug spending hit five percent for the first time in the first half of 2009, according to Medco Health Solutions. Oncology specialty drug spending increased 15.1 percent last year, trailing only medications for autoimmune conditions and multiple sclerosis as a specialty drug growth driver. Release
> Shares of Omeros, the first U.S. biotech company to go public in more than 18 months, dropped about 13 percent in the company's first day of trading. Report
Pharma News
> GSK's $3.2B bet on pandemic pays off. GSK report
> Consolidation, layoffs hit Atlanta drugmakers. Report
> Believe it or not, it's already time for Q3 earnings announcements to begin. Next week, three Big Pharmas will step into the financial limelight: Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, and Roche. And in each case, the results are looking brighter than they appeared to be back at the advent of 2009. Report
> Good news for Pfizer's HIV drug Selzentry. An FDA advisory panel yesterday recommended broader use of the med, which is currently only approved for patients whose treatment on other drugs has failed. Selzentry news
> The Harvard School of Public Health may have thrown a wrench in Merck's plans to extend use of its HPV vaccine to boys and young men. Researchers from the school ran a cost-benefit analysis of Gardasil use in males--and the results weren't encouraging. Gardasil report
And Finally... Europe's top five biotech hotspots. Report