WASHINGTONNews (Updated May 8,
2011)
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By Ben Hirschler
May 5, 2011
(Reuters) -
GlaxoSmithKline has no immediate plans to spin off an HIV drug company created
in 2009 with Pfizer, though it is "open-minded" about the unit's
long-term position, GSK's chief executive said Thursday.
"There's nothing in
the short term that we've got planned. We're very happy with what we've got at
the moment and we're focused on making it work," Andrew Witty told
reporters after the company's annual shareholder meeting.
Speculation that the two
drugmakers might launch an initial public offering (IPO) for their ViiV
Healthcare business -- which is 85 percent owned by GSK -- has increased
recently as new Pfizer boss Ian Read considers divesting some operations.
Read said on May 3 he
would provide rough outlines by the year's end on what Pfizer might sell or spin
off.
The creation of ViiV in
November 2009 marked an unusual drug industry collaboration because of the way
in which it pooled GSK and Pfizer's HIV/AIDS operations into a new business.
The current structure,
however, could easily form a stepping-stone to a fully independent business,
which some analysts believe might be better placed to take on Gilead Sciences,
the market leader in HIV medicine.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley
said in a research note last month they saw strong operational and valuation
benefits if GSK were to accelerate the potential demerger or IPO of ViiV,
calculating such a move would enhance earnings growth at GSK.
Witty said he was
receptive to rethinking ViiV's role within the group in the long term, even
though it was currently making good progress.
"Let's see where we
go in the future in terms of long-term corporate structure. Obviously, we've got
all sorts of options," he said. "As we've demonstrated all over the
place since I've taken over, we're prepared to do what creates the best value
for shareholders ... we're very open-minded."
(Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)
By Genevra Pittman
May 5, 2011
(Reuters Health) - New
mothers with hepatitis B can safely breastfeed their babies, as long as they
take a few important precautions, according to a new study.
The hepatitis B virus
causes inflammation and swelling of the liver and can lead to chronic damage on
the organ. The infection is spread through blood, unclean needles, and sex. It
may also pass from a mother to her baby during pregnancy and labor.
It has been unclear
whether breastfeeding may also transmit the virus, researchers say in the
Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
Their report, a review of
past studies, allays those fears.
Even in mothers with the
virus, "breastfeeding should be recommended as a valuable source of
nutrition to infants," study author Dr. Zhongjie Shi of
The researchers combined
data from 10 previous studies, all conducted in
To prevent transmission of
hepatitis B from the mom, babies are given a vaccine and another injected
medication soon after birth, and are vaccinated two or three more times during
the first few months of life.
By their first birthday,
31 babies out of the 637 with breastfeeding mothers tested positive for
hepatitis B. That compared to 33 babies out of 706 who had mothers who didn't
breastfeed.
Most of those infants, the
researchers explained, had been infected with the virus during pregnancy or
childbirth.
Shi said that blood is the
easiest way for hepatitis B to travel from mother to baby, followed by amniotic
fluid and vaginal secretions. He added that hepatitis B is up to 100 times more
infectious HIV.
Moms should avoid
breastfeeding if they have cracked or bleeding nipples or lesions on their
breasts, the authors note, as that could be a way to transmit the virus more
easily.
According to the World
Health Organization, about 350 million people worldwide are living with chronic
hepatitis B infection, while as many as 2 billion have been infected. About one
in four people infected with the virus as a child ultimately die of liver cancer
or liver scarring caused by the disease.
Shi concluded that while
more studies on this topic are needed, the new results "are most valuable
in developing countries and areas with high (hepatitis B) prevalence or heavy
population, such as
SOURCE: bit.ly/jMXjpI
Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, online May 2, 2011.
(AFP) – 5 May, 2011
WASHINGTON
Researchers vaccinated a
large group of rhesus monkeys and then exposed them to SIV repeatedly over the
course of two weeks. Half became infected, but the other half did not.
Those who resisted
infection were more likely to express a certain gene, identified as TRIM5.
The findings could help
researchers in the elusive search to develop a vaccine against human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, said lead author Norman Letvin.
"It tells us --
probably much to our surprise -- that there will likely be in humans certain
genes expressed by some people but not in others that may well be contributing
to protection," said Letvin, a Harvard Medical School professor.
"So that we not only
have to look at vaccine-induced antibody responses but we also have to look at
the genetic makeup of the individuals who are being vaccinated because these
data in monkeys suggest that both of these can be contributing."
The study appears in the
journal Science Translational Medicine.
A 2009 AIDS vaccine trial
on humans in
"We have demonstrated
in the Thai vaccine trial that with existing technologies we see modest
protection against HIV infections," he said.
"If we couple that
optimistic data in humans with the kind of data we generated in this study with
monkeys, as well as other studies in monkeys, it suggests that if we can induce
an even better antibody response through vaccination.
"Maybe with our next
generation vaccine we can get that up to 50 percent or 60 percent or even higher
levels of protection, and that protection can be even more durable," he
said.
The quest continues for a
vaccine against AIDS, which has claimed more than 25 million lives since 1981
and infected some 33 million people worldwide.