Chitra Sethi

Watson Pharmaceuticals has acquired Eden Biodesign for $15 million.

London-based pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca plans to slash 8,000 jobs, or 12% of its work force, by 2014 to cut costs.

The results of BioPharm International's fourth annual salary survey, conducted in the fall of 2009, shows that women lag behind their male counterparts.

Genzyme (Cambridge, MA) will outsource fill-and-finish operations for its drugs Cerezyme, Fabrazyme, Myozyme, and Thyrogen to Illinois-based Hospira, Inc.

The year 2009 was marked by recession, industry megamergers, and venture-capital scarcity. How did biopharmaceutical professionals fare?

Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of France-based Sanofi-Aventis Group, is voluntarily recalling about 800,000 doses of H1N1 (swine) flu vaccine meant for children between the ages of 6 months and 35 months because quality assurance tests indicate the vaccine doses lost some potency.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Agriflu, a new seasonal flu vaccine manufactured by Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics (Siena, Italy), for people ages 18 years and older to prevent disease caused by influenza virus subtypes A and B.

The Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis has opened a new vaccine manufacturing facility in Holly Springs, NC.

In an attempt to save around $60 million annually, the Danish biopharmaceutical company Genmab is planning to sell its manufacturing facility located in Brooklyn Park, MN, and reduce headcount by approximately 300 positions.

In a ribbon-cutting ceremony held on October 30, 2009, Sartorius (Goettingen, Germany) inaugurated its new plant at the Sartorius Group's location in Bangalore, India.