> In a clinical trial, Vertex's telaprevir was able to cure about half of all hep C patients who had failed standard therapeutics. And Xconomy notes that that is triple the rate for patients who have tried a second round of therapy. The developer has been steadily building a case that telaprevir can be a major blockbuster. Report
> Sepracor says that a late-stage study of Omnaris (ciclesonide) HFA, an aerosol nasal formulation of ciclesonide for seasonal allergic rhinitis, met its primary efficacy endpoint. Sepracor release
> Pharming's Prodarsan has been awarded an orphan drug designation for the treatment of Cockayne Syndrome. Pharming release
> Spain's Zeltia says that preclinical research of Irvalec has demonstrated efficacy against lung cancer. Report
> Marketing groups in the Baltimore are stepping up their efforts to find new tenants for abandoned biotech space. Story
> Proxy season continues. Today's entry: King Pharmaceuticals, whose executives' pay jumped 12.3 percent, despite a big drop in revenues and a net loss of $333 million on acquisition charges. King report
> A bad surprise for Bayer and Onyx Pharmaceuticals: A trial of their cancer med Nexavar stopped early not because the drug was so effective, but because it was obvious that the study wouldn't ever get to its primary goal. The companies had been testing the liver- and kidney-cancer treatment against skin cancer. Report
> Public health emergency. Pandemic potential. Emergency WHO meeting. The phrases thrown around over the weekend and into this morning may be worrisome for John Q. Public, but they're fighting words for some drugmakers. Roche and GlaxoSmithKline, et al, are gearing up for a possible swine flu pandemic. Let's see how. Report
> Aurora Health Care is launching an IT-fueled research effort to support personalized medicine based on genetic research. Report
> An upgraded version of software used for reporting clinical data provides for compliance with data integrity standards. The goal of the software--ClinPlus Report version 4.0--is two-fold: to aid in standards compliance in the conversion of study data to analysis-data-model data, prior to its conversion to submission-ready tables, listings, and graphs, and to aid in documenting the conversion process. Report
> Healthcare IT provider Bio-Optronics is integrating a debit card solution into its Clinical Conductor clinical trial management system (CTMS). The Rx Paying debit card solution, from trial management organization Interspond, is expected to aid subject participation and retention by providing immediate access to stipend funds from retail locations and ATMs. Report
> Healthcare IT start-up TrialX has launched an application that allows the 4 million to 6 million (and growing) Twitter users to find clinical trials. Report
And Finally... University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston researchers have discovered that a form of vitamin B1 could become a new and effective treatment for one of the world's leading causes of blindness. Release