A statement released by CEO William Weldon said, “Today’s news about the Infants’ Tylenol recall is clearly disappointing after all the progress that McNeil has been making to ensure its products meet the highest level of quality and consumer satisfaction.”  The unit has had about 25 product recalls since September 2009.

The redesigned bottles at the heart of the recall were introduced in November 2011 and were touted by the company as a big safety improvement that made measuring doses simpler.  A protective cover on the top of the bottles is meant to limit how much of the medication can be drawn into a plastic syringe.  Consumers are to insert the tip of the syringe into the flow restrictor at the top to help measure the right dose using the milliliter markings on the syringe.

Some parents have had problems with the redesigned bottles.  Seventeen parents and caregivers have complained to the company that the protective cover didn’t work correctly.  When the consumers inserted the plastic syringe into the bottle, it pushed the protective cover into the bottle.

The change in the packaging was intended to simplify the dosing procedure and to limit spillage if the bottle happened to be knocked over.  The company had previously expressed confidence that the new design would become the industry standard.  McNeil spokeswoman Bonnie Jacobs commented that it was too early to say when the product will see a return to the market.  She said, “We are looking at various alternatives for the redesign of the dosing system and will set a timeline … once we’ve reviewed all the options.”

Amgen will acquire Micromet’s shares during two separate phases.  In the first, a subsidiary of Amgen will purchase a majority of Micromet’s outstanding shares at $11 per share.  In the second phase, the parent company will buy any remaining shares, paying the same price per share.

Micromet is a biotechnology company that develops cancer therapies that target blood and solid tumor cancers, including leukemia and non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas.  The company is based in Rockville, MD and has research facilities in Munich.  Micromet currently has no drugs on the market and has blinatumomab, a treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, currently in Phase 2 trials.

Kevin Sharer, Amgen’s chief executive, said, “The acquisition of Micromet is an opportunity to acquire an innovative oncology asset with global rights and a validated technology platform with broad potential clinical applications.  Blinatumomab will serve as an important complement to our oncology pipeline.”

For the past five years, the company has struggled to come up with new blockbuster drugs, only introducing one successful blockbuster, an osteoporosis treatment called denosumab.  In 2011, the company reduced its research and development staff by 6% and announced its intentions for a $5 billion share buyback.

Eric Schmidt, a Cowen Group analyst, said, “Amgen’s acquisition speaks to the never ending appetite of larger companies for smaller companies in the biopharmaceutical market.” However, he also said, “I would rather see Amgen play its own cards, as opposed to acquire another business at a significant premium,” showing his skepticism about the company paying the rich premium for Micromet and its ability to extract significant value from the deal.

This involved a process similar to using stem cells to create new cells in the body.

Stem cells are cells that can turn into other types of body cells – eye cells, blood cells, bone cells, brain cells.

Previous studies involved turning skin cells into stem cells, as a sort of bridge procedure: skin cells are turned to stem cells, which are then turned to brain cells.

This method, however, often resulted in the activation of cancer genes.

The group from the Stanford University School of Medicine worked with mice and reported that they have been able to take them skin cells of the mice and reprogram them directly into brain cells without passing the stem cell stage.

They based their research on the knowledge that skin cells and brain cells both have the same genetic code, and only the difference in the interpretation of those codes creates the difference between the two cells. This interpretation is controlled by what the researchers called “transcription factors.”

By using a virus to infect the skin cells with transcription factors that are present in high levels in brain cells, the researchers were able to make 10% of the targeted skin cells turn to brain cells within three weeks.

Lead author Prof Marius Wernig said that his team was “thrilled about the prospects for potential medical use of the cells.” The new brain cells could be studied as a method for regenerating the damaged neurons of people who have sustained injuries.

The study, however, has so far been limited only to mouse cells. The technique has not yet been used on human skin cells.

This study has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“This finding floored us,” exclaimed UCLA professor Steven Clark, who was the senior author of the study.

The abovementioned study was entirely serendipitous, however, as the original intent of the research was to study the effect of cholesterol. The scientists found that the cholesterol-fed worms lived longer.

But they later realized that it was not the cholesterol creating the longevity effect. The cholesterol was dissolved in ethanol, diluted 1,000-fold.

It turned out, they later discovered, that it was the ethanol solvent that was creating the effect. “The cholesterol did nothing,” said Clarke.

What the ethanol did was let the worms, which normally live for 15 days, survive for up to 40 days.

The authors, though, note that the ethanol was in very, very tiny amounts ­ – about a tablespoon of ethanol in a bathtub of water. If we were talking about the alcohol in one bottle of beer, you’d have to add a hundred gallons of water to reach the same concentration.

Now the question is, what makes alcohol create this effect?

Clarke admits they don’t know yet. All they know is that the moment they increased the concentration of the ethanol, the benefit disappeared.

Ethanol is the type of alcohol most often found in alcoholic beverages.

The study was published in 18 January in the online journal PLoS ONE.

The current therapy recommendation for the drug is to take it a week before “D-day”, but a clinical trial conducted at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, University at Buffalo, found that taking varenicline four weeks earlier improved the success rates of smokers trying to kick the habit.

The study participants were 25 men and 35 women who all smoked a pack of cigarettes every day. The participants were randomly divided into two groups. One group was given Chantix for a week before day 1, i.e., the day they quit smoking. The other group was given the drug four weeks prior to day 1.

Both groups continued taking the medication for 11 weeks after day 1.

The researchers found that among those who took Chantix four weeks earlier, 53% remained tobacco-free three months later. In the control group, which took Chantix only a week before, 40% was still tobacco-free after the same period of time.

Interestingly, the researchers also found that in the group that took Chantix four weeks before day 1, the women were able to reduce their smoking by over 50% three weeks into the treatment, while the men reduced their smoking by 26% over the same time span.

Researchers say larger studies are necessary to confirm the difference in the drug’s effect between genders.

This study was published 05 January in the journal Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics.