> The FDA has set a June 17 deadline for ruling on Genzyme's Pompe disease drug Lumizyme. That's later than some analysts had expected, which caused the company's stock to slip slightly. Report
> TheStreet's Adam Feuerstein was quick to shoot down a rumor that was pushing up the price of Cyclacel Pharmaeuticals' shares yesterday afternoon. The rumor was that the NEJM was about to publish a story on Cyclacel's cancer drug, but no such story existed. Story
> The European Medicines Agency has notified Pfizer that it has successfully completed the validation phase of its application to market Xiaflex. The notification triggers a $15 million milestone for Auxilium, which originally developed the drug. The two companies inked a co-development pact in 2008. Release
> InterMune says it plans to sell 5.75 million shares. InterMune release
> Carmot Therapeutics, a San Francisco-based start-up, was one of six recipients of a $2.1 million grant from the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Report
> Perseid Therapeutics has achieved a $5 million preclinical milestone under its collaboration with Astellas Pharma to co-develop and commercialize next-generation CTLA4-Ig therapeutics. Release
Pharma News
> Want to take the temperature of the U.K.'s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence? Just monitor the drugs they recommend for use by the National Health Service--and those they don't. Specifically, watch the drugs and their prices. Article
> The price cuts GlaxoSmithKline and now Sanofi-Aventis are undertaking in the developing world may soon be industry-wide. Report
> Watson has grabbed market share on generic Toprol. Report
> Healthcare reform is not dead, but may be less ambitious. Article
Vaccines News
> Glaxo's Andrew Witty says he'll price the company's new malaria vaccine just over cost. And any profits, he pledges, will be plowed back into research. Report
> Few countries responded more aggressively to the swine flu pandemic than the U.K. Quick to reassure its citizens, the country was among the first to lay its hands on a substantial supply of new flu vaccine. And it called on healthcare workers to be first in line, a key measure in the fight to contain any virus. Story
> The number of women under the age of 30 diagnosed with cervical cancer will fall nearly two thirds by 2025 because they have received the HPV vaccine, according to a study published this week in the British Journal of Cancer. Report
> With people shrugging off the swine flu pandemic around the globe, analysts are beginning to tot up the impact slack demand will have on the Big Pharma companies that raced to supply the world with a novel vaccine. Story
> Australian scientists have discovered two antigens that could play a key role in developing a powerful new malaria vaccine. And they made the discovery after studying 33 people who had suffered from malaria and then grown immune to it. Report
And Finally.... BBC London found that only one in three nurses in London was vaccinated by mid-December as the vast majority of medical staffers simply refused to heed the advice of the National Health Service. The vaccine first became available in the UK in October. FV