Daiichi wraps up Ranbaxy takeover; Bayer anticipates new Xarelto data;

> Japan's Daiichi Sankyo has completed its $4 billion acquisition of Ranbaxy Laboratories, India's largest pharmaceutical company, the companies said Friday. Report

> Bayer and Johnson & Johnson hope new data on their anticoagulant Xarelto--scheduled to be presented at the AHA meeting next week--will help broaden its use to acute coronary syndrome; the drug is currently approved in Europe for clot prevention after orthopedic surgery. Report

> Glenmark Pharmaceuticals has postponed plans for acquisitions in the U.S. because of the "current financial situation," Managing Director Glenn Saldanha told an analyst meet on Friday. Report

> UBS downgraded Sanofi-Aventis to sell from neutral, citing a more tempered view on the pharmaceuticals sector as a whole and Sanofi's high exposure to potential generic competition in the coming years. Report

> Roche, Genentech and OSI Pharmaceuticals announced that patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCL) given its drug Tarceva immediately after chemotherapy were shown to live longer, without their cancer getting worse. Report

> ProStrakan, the Scottish pharmaceutical firm, has secured a license and supply agreement that will allow it to sell its new nausea drug Sancuso in the Middle East and Africa. Report

> India's Aurobindo Pharma got the FDA nod for its generic version of Pfizer's Zoloft oral concentrate. Report

> China Pharma Holdings reported a 52 percent rise in third-quarter revenues to $12.6 million on a huge increase in sales of PuSenOK, a generic version of Aleve-D in China. Release

> The FBI is investigating an extortion letter threatening to expose millions of patient records stolen from Express Scripts, a medical benefits management company. Report

> Glenmark Pharmaceuticals said that its European subsidiary Glenmark Generics launched Perindopril tablets, its first product in the UK. Report

> Sweden's AnaMar Medical has raised SEK 75 million ($9.6 million) to fund a phase I study of AM240 MCR for rheumatoid arthritis. Report

> Denmark's Bavarian Nordic is reporting a favorable safety profile for its smallpox vaccine Imvamune. Report

> The Mayo Clinic is getting out of the business of conducting clinical trials for drug developers, citing a low-cost environment that has made the world renowned organization uncompetitive. Report

> San Francisco-based biotech Medivation will pay its top executives $1 million in bonuses for individual performance, achieving company goals and landing a partnership deal with Pfizer. We give you the breakdown. Report

> An international consortium has invested £1.5 million in Scotland's Big DNA. The money is being used to advance the biotech company's technology using bacterial viruses to deliver vaccines. Report

 And Finally...  Military scientists have been hard at work in Thailand developing a new vaccine to combat dengue fever. Report