S.C., Lilly reach $45M Zyprexa settlement; Lower costs help Ranbaxy beat profit estimates;

> South Carolina's attorney general said the state had reached a $45 million settlement with Eli Lilly over the company's marketing of the antipsychotic drug Zyprexa. Report

> Ranbaxy Laboratories, India's biggest drugmaker, posted a third-quarter profit that beat analysts' estimates on lower costs and a smaller foreign- currency loss. Report

> Sen. Charles Grassley is now demanding information on drug industry donations to the National Alliance on Mental Illness' 50 state chapters and related foundations. Report

> Merck KGaA profits dropped for the fifth quarter, to $217.1 millon, amid increased spending on drug development. Report

> Seeking to protect its popular cholesterol drug Lipitor, Pfizer filed a patent infringement case against a competitor in the Phillippines, United Laboratories. Report

> The Medicines Co. said a European Union panel recommended approval for its anti-clotting agent Angiox for patients who are having an angioplasty following a heart attack. Report

Biotech News

> J&J CEO Bill Weldon (photo) has done the math on drug discovery and his bottom line is that it's a lot cheaper and less risky to ink partnership deals than try and do discovery on its own. Article

> Cephalon has agreed to pay $30 million for an option to buy Wellesley, MA-based BioAssets Development Corp., which is pursuing new TNF inhibitors for sciatic pain in patients with intervertebral disk herniation and other spinal disorders. Report

> SuperGen has teamed up with GlaxoSmithKline in a $375 million drug development deal to find new cancer therapies, and investors spurred its shares up by 28 percent on the news. Report

> San Francisco developers have blueprinted a $1 billion biotech campus. Report

> Once hailed as a national hero for his groundbreaking work on new stem cell therapies, South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk was convicted of embezzling research funds and sentenced to a three year suspended sentence. Report

IT News

> Finally, some detail on the far-more-hyped-than-tried adaptive clinical trial. Two trials show that adaptive techniques have their place. Report

> Phase Forward continues its clinical trial software announcement blitz with two in the last week: an enhanced trial supply management system and a free tool to catch medidata errors. Article

> The Quintiles ClinicalResearch.com Internet site, which aids prospective subjects in their search for clinical trials, is intended as more than a simple directory, says Dave Coman, senior VP for patient recruitment at the contract research giant. "Our role is making sure that patients understand the role of clinical trials. That's the uber-issue--patient awareness, understanding, participation." Report

> Advanced pattern detection, treatment comparison, and functional analysis of genomic expression data are among the objectives of Biomarker Discovery 2.0 software from Integromics for the TIBCO Spotfire business intelligence platform. Improved methods of data access and normalization are additional objectives. Report

And Finally... Contrary to current belief, antidepressants get to work immediately to lift mood, U.K. researchers say. Report