Chemistry World Blog

Air Products withdraws offer for Airgas

Air Products has dropped its $70 ($43) per share purchase offer for fellow gas supplier Airgas, bringing to a close a year-long battle between the two companies. (more…)

— Science without borders

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) President Alice Huang opened the AAAS annual meeting meeting in Washington this afternoon (US time) with the President’s address, in which she discussed her 4 main interests: viruses, international science collaboration, equal opportunities and science education for all.

Huang is a Chinese born virologist who grew up in the US, went through the US education system and became a full professor at Harvard Medical School in 1971, so you can see why she might be passionate about these areas. At a press preview earlier in the day Huang spoke quite a lot about inequalities and discrimination in American science. (more…)

Anti-diabetes drug market: not an industry panacea

Strong growth in the market for anti-diabetes drugs will not outweigh decline in the broader market for drugs for the treatment of cardiovascular and metabolic conditions, according to a report from market research firm Datamonitor. The latter will peak across the ‘seven major’ regions in 2011 and then begin to decline due to generic erosion, with total sales falling from $105 billion (£65 billion) in 2009 to $101 billion in 2019. The market for drugs for the treatment of dyslipidemia and hypertension, in particular, is set to become almost entirely dominated by generics. (more…)

Short of breath? Wheezing? Salbutamol is the asthmatic’s elixir that saved Andrea Sella’s life. Find out more and learn how this blockbuster drug was abused by athletes in this week’s Chemistry in its element podcast

14 February 2011: Have something to say about an article you’ve read on Chemistry World this week? Leave your comments below…

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Sanofi sales hit by generics

Sanofi-Aventis’s fourth quarter profits have dropped by 64 per cent since last year to €437 million (£370 million). It is thought that restructuring costs of €880 million and the lack of a flu pandemic that affected vaccine sales, are partly to blame. (more…)

The Commercial Chemist is in Charlotte, US, for speciality chemical tradeshow Informex.

Everyone wants to know what’s going to happen to the Pfizer site in Sandwich, UK - in particular the 2400 researchers working there - now that Pfizer has said it wants out. So it wasn’t a huge surprise when the issue was raised this morning at a panel discussion about large asset transactions in the life sciences sector. Timothy Tyson from Aptuit said that in his opinion there’s no chance of anyone picking up the whole thing. According to Tyson, any individual contract research organisation (CRO) would be unlikely to take on more than about 500 people. It just wouldn’t make sense – the pharma industry is ‘over capacity’ and the UK is a ‘high cost environment’. (more…)

The Commercial Chemist is in Charlotte, US, for speciality chemical tradeshow Informex.

Today, I met the guys who make osmium tetroxide. I say ‘the guys’ because it turns out that hardly anyone does this. Globally, there are only a handful of companies in the business, and US company Colonial Metals claims to be the only manufacturer in the Americas. (more…)

Brian Clegg is far from vitriolic about the subject of this week’s Chemistry in its element podcast – sulfuric acid, also known as oil of vitriol. Even though it causes acid rain, without it our cars would be going nowhere and we would not have phosphate for fertiliser.

Pandemrix-narcolepsy link

Finland’s National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) suggests that the link between swine flu vaccine Pandemrix and narcolepsy – a sleeping disorder that leads to extreme fatigue and can cause patients to fall asleep at unexpected times – is high.

Pandemrix was first approved for use by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in 2009 during the H1N1 flu pandemic and was given to over 31 million people. Following concerns about the link to narcolepsy, the EMA carried out a review, but found no evidence to the fact.

Now an interim report by the THL suggests a clear association of Pandemrix and the sleeping disorder among those vaccinated aged between 4 and 19 years old. The report states that the risk of developing narcolepsy is nine times higher for vaccine patients in this age range than people who have not been vaccinated. (more…)