> A disgruntled group of investors led by U.S. hedge fund QVT Financial is planning to block Wockhardt's sale of its nutrition business to Abbott Laboratories--and any other asset sales--until issues related to a bond buyback are resolved. Report
> Amgen announced that it would donate $2 million to relief efforts in Haiti. Release
> Eli Lilly pledged $125,000 in immediate aid to Haiti and another $125,000 during the next 12 months. Report
> Johnson & Johnson unit Janssen-Cilag's Stelara is more effective than Wyeth's rival biologic Enbrel in managing moderate-to-severe psoriasis, according to a new study. Release
> Teva Pharmaceutical Industries is plotting a 156-acre campus in Bucks County, Penn., with a first phase of new warehouse buildings. Report
> AstraZeneca has agreed to lease 55,000 sqare feet at Stockley Park, an office development near London's Heathrow Airport. Report
> The Spanish health ministry has published a new pricing order that creates around 20 new reference pricing groups, affecting the same number of active ingredients. Report
> The Polish pharmaceutical market grew by almost 11 percent to $7.6 billion at wholesalers' prices last year. Report
> Strains of mutant HIV emerging in the U.S. and Europe threaten to undermine progress made in expanding access to treatment in poor countries. Report
> Novo Nordisk was cut to hold from buy at Jefferies, which cited concern ahead of a U.S. decision on Victoza. Report
Biotech News
> Reuters' Deena Beasley came away from the J.P. Morgan meeting in San Francisco with a sense that the pace of deal-making between biotechs and pharma companies has been slowed by Big Pharma's "limited appetite for risk." Story
> According to the AP, President Obama and House Democrat Henry Waxman have teamed up to make a last-minute push to significantly pare back the 12-year period of data exclusivity lawmakers provided biologics in the healthcare reform bill. If they are successful, it would be a major blow to the industry's leading lobbyists at BIO as well as PhRMA, who have managed to hold together a large coalition of Democrats and Republicans in favor of the long stretch of protection from generic competition. Report
> Economic development officials in Georgia are hoping to trigger something of a biotech boom in southwest Atlanta with the creation of a 170-acre research park in the redeveloped Fort McPherson. The park could be anchored by a research center and marketed as an R&D complex for "vaccine development, regenerative medicine, cardiovascular research, and neuroscience," according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle. And a fully developed complex could lure 7,000 biotech jobs. Report
> With an FDA advisory meeting for pixantrone looming, Cell Therapeutics (CTI) has waded into the market to raise $30 million from a stock sale. That sent the value of its shares down 12 percent and has at least one prominent biotech watcher scratching his head. Report
And Finally... Why does the FDA care about a fake Tiger Woods label on Gatorade? Report