ALSO NOTED: Pfizer gets new cancer team to advance key drugs; Bayer clearing Trasylol off U.S. market;

> With the clock ticking on its patent for Lipitor, Pfizer has turned to a group of new executives to lead the company to the promised land of new cancer therapies. Report [1]

> Bayer is pulling its remaining stocks of the anti-bleeding drug Trasylol, leaving the drug on the market only under an investigational program, the FDA announced. Release [2] | Report [3]

> Sanofi-Aventis has instituted a precautionary recall of 11 batches of the anti-clotting drug Lovenox after some were found contaminated with low levels of oversulfated chondroitin, the same chemical found in tainted heparin recalled by Baxter earlier this year. Report [4] | Report [5]

> FDA has blessed a new tablet coating ingredient, Kollicoat IR, from the German chemical company BASF. Report [6]

> In more bad news/good news on generics, prices for the copycat meds dropped by 9.6 percent in 2007 as some of the most common drugs had price declines of up to 70 percent. Report [7]

> Canadian regulators may pull the Plan B contraceptive--otherwise known as the "morning-after pill"--out from behind the pharmacy counter. Report [8]

> India's Lupin saw its stock leap on an FDA approval for its version of the Wyeth heart-failure and blood-pressure med Altace, aka ramipril. Report [9]

> Ranbaxy got the FDA nod for its muscle relaxant cyclobenzaprine, a generic form of the Ortho-McNeil drug Flexeril. Report [10]

> Sepracor shares were off 2 percent on news that its CFO was leaving the company. Report [11]

> An older statin, fluvastatin, showed action against the hepatitis C virus in a new study. Report [12]

> Getting an embryonic stem cell therapy through clinical trials in the U.S. is looking like an increasingly tough challenge after Geron announced that the FDA is delaying a study of its experimental therapy for spinal cord injuries. Stem cell reoprt [13]

> Forbes Medi-Tech says it will slash a third of its staff and shelve all in-house drug development work as it focuses its efforts on the nutraceutical business. Report [14]

> Sweden's Biovitrum AB has restructured its R&D operations, winnowing out about 100 people either through layoffs or by reassigning them to other work. Report [15]

> Last year's awful record of new drug approvals [16] by the FDA has been followed by a burst of new activity. Pharmalot reports new analysis indicating 29 new drug approvals through April, the fastest rate of acceptance since 1998 and 2000. Report [17]

And Finally ... Also from the ASCO data dump: Vitamin D may help curb breast cancer. Report [18]