Lundbeck anticipates new drug “feast”

LONDON (Reuters) – Danish group Lundbeck is looking forward to a “feast” of new drugs to refresh its product line-up, kicking off next week with a possible European Union green light for a novel medicine to treat alcohol abuse.

In all, there is scope for regulatory approval of three medicines in 2013 – an impressive tally for a small company focused on brain disorders – as well as a potential partnership deal for a drug to fight the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.

“Sometimes people say it is feast or famine for this industry and we are in a feast phase, especially considering our size,” chief executive Ulf Wiinberg told Reuters.

Lundbeck needs these new drugs to replace lost sales from antidepressant Cipralex, sold as Lexapro in the United States, which is now coming off patent.

Doubts about the company’s ability to make the transition from reliance on Cipralex has taken its toll on the stock in recent months, with the shares underperforming the European drugs sector by 23 percent this year.

There have even been suggestions the Lundbeck Foundation, which owns a 70 percent stake, might delist the drugmaker.

Wiinberg said this option had not be discussed. “If we were working on it I would say something, but I have nothing to say.”

While Wiinberg has already said earnings will stall until 2015 as a result of patent losses, he is increasingly confident the pieces are in place to lift sales in the medium term.

The next catalyst could come as early as December 13 or 14, when Lundbeck expects the European Medicines Agency to decide whether or not to recommend Selincro for alcohol dependence. A positive decision would lead to approval early next year.

The drug is breaking new ground in an uncertain market, and Wiinberg said it was “a bit of a joker in our portfolio”. Analysts currently pencil in only modest sales.

More important will be the verdict from regulators in North America and Europe later next year on a new antidepressant being developed with Japanese partner Takeda Pharmaceutical that analysts see as a potential $ 1-$ 2 billion-a-year seller.

Developing new treatments for depression has proved an uphill battle for drugmakers in recent times but vortioxetine has produced encouraging clinical trial results and its unique mode of action and flexible dosing could make it a winner.

The third approval prospect for next year is Abilify Maintena, a once-monthly version of schizophrenia drug Abilify that Lundbeck is working on with Otsuka.

Further out, Lundbeck is developing a drug for the symptoms of Alzheimer’s – a more modest ambition than that of disease-modifying treatments which have so far failed to gain much traction in tackling the underlying causes of the disorder.

That drug will be ready to go into final-stage clinical testing next year and Wiinberg said he would look to strike a partnership deal for the product, known as LuAE58054, at the same time as preparing for Phase III trials.

(Editing by Dan Lalor)

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PlayStation 3 was the world’s No.1 Netflix streaming device this year

There are dozens of devices that can stream Netflix (NFLX), but only one can machine be crowned the king of the living room. According to Netflix, that device is Sony’s (SNE) PlayStation 3 console. Without revealing any specific figures, Netflix announced on its blog “in the U.S. and globally, PS3 is the largest TV-connected platform in terms of Netflix viewing” and that “at times, PS3 even surpassed the PC in hours of Netflix enjoyment to become our No. 1 platform overall.” 

Netflix’s blog is quick to mention why the PS3 is the most popular streaming device this year, applauding it for being the first console to have 1080p HD video and 5.1-channel Dolby Digital Plus surround sound, post-play, second screen controls, subtitles and easy app updates.

While the Xbox 360 is gaining ground in terms of how many hours users spend watching videos on it, streaming video services such as Netflix requires an Xbox LIVE Gold subscription. One reason why the PlayStation 3 might be leading Netflix streaming is because it doesn’t require a subscription fee to have access to the Netflix app, or any other streaming video app such as Amazon (AMZN) Instant Video.

“The PlayStation and Netflix communities both share a strong passion for high quality entertainment,” Sony Computer Entertainment of America CEO and president Jack Tretton said. “Netflix provides a fantastic experience for watching TV shows and movies on PS3, and our joint development will continue to produce innovations for our customers that further demonstrate PS3 as the true home for entertainment in the living room.”

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WestJet embraces tech to woo business travelers

TORONTO (Reuters) – WestJet Airlines Ltd will use technological innovation, including a new Internet ticket booking system, to help it transform from a no-frills carrier to a lower-cost full-service airline courting lucrative corporate travelers, its chief executive said on Monday.

Canada’s second-biggest airline plans to launch a series of technology systems, most notably the new online booking engine, which will sell three tiers of tickets, in the next two months.

“Companies evolve or they die,” Chief Executive Gregg Saretsky told Reuters in a phone interview from the company’s Calgary head office.

“We’re 16 and going on 17 years old and we can’t stay just as we were 17 years ago. The world has changed. And we are changing to be more relevant for a broader segment of guests.”

The new Internet booking system, which WestJet hopes to launch in late January, will sell economy, mid-tier and premium tickets. That is a major shift from its current system, which sells only the lowest-priced ticket available.

Economy tickets under the new system will continue to sell the lowest available fare, but the cancellation fee for them will jump to C$ 75 ($ 75.48) from C$ 50. Mid-tier tickets will have a C$ 50 cancellation fee.

Premium tickets, unavailable until late March when WestJet finishes reconfiguring its 100 Boeing 737 planes to allow more leg room, will include priority screening and boarding, free cancellations and flexibility on ticket changes.

Pricing for those tickets, which may include free meals and drinks and an extra baggage allowance, has not yet been determined. Fares will be well below half the price for business class at WestJet’s bigger competitor, Air Canada, Saretsky said.

“It’s time for us to be more serious with respect to going after business travelers because frankly, they’re the ones who are booking last-minute and are happy to pay for the conveniences,” Saretsky said.

WestJet will launch its premium economy service with 24 seats per plane, but will consider expansion if it proves “wildly successful,” he added.

POISED FOR CHANGE

WestJet, which has spent about C$ 40 million over the past two years on technology projects, is poised for major changes in 2013 as it readies to launch a new regional airline, Encore.

Saretsky hopes that WestJet’s switch in coming weeks to a new Internet phone system will allow ticket reservation agents to work from home and help make room for Encore staff.

Some 750 reservation agents work at WestJet’s Calgary offices, which house about 2,400 staff. Space will be needed for Encore employees over the next 18 months while their office, hangars and maintenance stores are constructed at the WestJet campus.

Encore will be launch in the second half of 2013, “probably closer to July than December,” Saretsky said, with seven Bombardier Q400 planes.

While WestJet won’t announce Encore’s schedule until Jan 21, the carrier will initially serve only “a handful” of new cities, with ticket prices up to 50 percent below Air Canada’s, he added.

Over the next two months, WestJet will also roll out a guest notification system that alerts travelers via email about their flights, allowing them to check in remotely.

Such self-service technology will be critical as WestJet faces increasing labor costs, Saretsky said.

Wage and benefit costs, which represent about a third of operating costs, have climbed 50 percent since WestJet was founded in 1996.

“You can see that creates a little bit of drag on earnings,” Saretsky said. “We’ve got to find ways of reducing our component costs.”

If WestJet can increase self service options for travelers, that could limit the need for new employees, Saretsky said. Management also wants to improve attendance management, so that fewer employees book off sick around long weekends, and more quickly clean and process planes between flights, he said.

(Reporting By Susan Taylor; Editing by Peter Galloway)

(This story was corrected to show that WestJet is replacing its Internet booking engine, not entire reservation system, in the first and second paragraphs)

Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Longtime editor at DC’s Vertigo imprint leaving

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — DC Entertainment says its executive editor and senior vice president of Vertigo — a groundbreaking imprint whose titles have included “Hellblazer,” ”DMZ” and “Sandman” — is leaving early next year.

Karen Berger will step down in March after nearly 20 years at the helm, saying in a statement released by DC late Monday that she is ready for a professional change.

During her tenure at Vertigo, the imprint saw a wide range of writers and artists — Neil Gaiman, Jill Thompson, Becky Cloonan and Brian Wood, among them — who produced titles beyond the traditional superhero and villain archetype.

Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance and writer of “The Umbrella Academy” tweeted that Berger gave “us weird kids in high school a Sub Pop Records for comics.”

___

Online:

http://www.vertigocomics.com

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After parent’s cancer death, one in five kids self-injure

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – One in five teens who lost one of their parents to cancer cut or burn themselves, compared to one in ten teens with two living parents, according to a new Swedish study.

“We were very surprised to find that so many did it,” said lead researcher Tove Grenklo, a behavioral scientist at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.

Cutting and burning is thought to be how some troubled teens express their emotions, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Those teens may hurt themselves if they can’t talk about their feelings, are upset or have low self esteem.

Earlier this year, a study found that children start harming themselves as early as third grade. (see Reuters Health article of June 11, 2012. http://reut.rs/Kveo8v)

The study’s researchers write in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine that past research showed children with one dead parent are already more likely to have – among other things – psychiatric problems, depression, drug and alcohol abuse and anxiety.

Grenklo and her colleagues wanted to see if they were also more likely to hurt themselves.

For the study, they used Sweden’s national death databases to find and survey teens who lost one of their parents to cancer between 2000 and 2003, when they were between 13 and 16.

They then found teens who still had two living parents for a comparison group.

Of the 851 teens who lost a parent, 622 returned their survey, as did 330 of the 451 teens in the comparison group.

Overall, about 20 percent of the teens with only one surviving parent said they hurt themselves, compared to about 10 percent of teens with both parents living.

‘WE SHOULD TALK WITH EACH OTHER’

“This study is one of the first to establish that (losing a parent to cancer) might be a unique risk factor for this behavior,” said Stephen Lewis, who was not involved with the new study but has studied self-injury at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

Lewis added that the study’s findings seem to be in line with other estimates of how many teens injure themselves.

The researchers say teens may be driven to self-injure after their parents’ deaths by an increased sense of emotional distress and numbness.

Another possible explanation for the increase is that the teens lost a caretaker who would notice their emotional suffering and prevent self-injury, they add.

As for prevention, both Grenklo and Lewis emphasized communication.

“I’m a strong believer that we should talk with each other,” said Grenklo. “Children need to know the facts of what happened and why. And that it’s OK to be sad and talk about the diseased parent.”

“We know one of the reasons people self injure is that they use injuring as a way to release their emotions,” said Lewis, who added that it’s important for parents, family members and teachers to know how to talk about self-injury and how to prevent it.

Lewis said information on preventing and handling self injury can be found at SIOutreach.org – a Web site where he is co-director.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/TLILN8 Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, online December 3, 2012.

Parenting/Kids News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Conservative Republicans booted from House budget panel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two of the most conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives have been kicked off the House Budget Committee, a rare move that could make it easier for the panel to advance a deal with Democrats to cut fiscal deficits.

Representatives Tim Huelskamp of Kansas and Justin Amash of Michigan - both favorites of the anti-tax Tea Party movement - are among those Republicans voting most often against House Speaker John Boehner.

Huelskamp and Amash, who both will begin second terms in the House next month, voted against last year's deal to raise the federal debt limit and staunchly oppose any tax increases. Boehner has now included new revenue in his latest offer to avert the "fiscal cliff" of year-end tax hikes and automatic spending cuts. Given their voting records, winning support from Huelskamp and Amash for such a compromise seemed an uphill battle.

Huelskamp released a statement saying the Republican leadership "might think they have silenced conservatives but removing me and others from key committees only confirms our conservative convictions.

"This is clearly a vindictive move and a sure sign that the GOP establishment cannot handle disagreement," he said.

Huelskamp and Amash had said that despite sweeping changes to the Medicare and Medicaid healthcare programs, committee chairman Paul Ryan's budget did not make deep enough cuts to entitlement programs and military spending.

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel declined to be specific on the reasons for their ouster by the House Republican Steering Committee, which occurred Monday in a closed-door meeting.

"The Steering Committee makes decisions based on a range of factors," Steel said.

Huelskamp said he was given "limited explanation" for his removal from the Budget Committee, a move he called "vindictive." A spokesman for Amash could not be immediately reached for comment.

Huelskamp and Amash cast the only House Budget Committee votes against Ryan's budget plan earlier this year.

While there is often wrangling over committee chairmanships just before a new Congress takes office, it is rare for rank-and-file committee members to be stripped of their assignments.

The 34-member Republican steering committee is headed by Boehner and includes members of House leadership, committee chairs and other lawmakers representing different regions of the country.

The same group last week recommended that Ryan, the conservative former Republican vice presidential candidate, be renewed as Budget Committee chairman.

(Editing by Bill Trott)

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Conservatives make Boehner's life difficult

WASHINGTON—Conservatives panned the House Republican proposal released Monday to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, yet again giving House Speaker and lead negotiator John Boehner little room to maneuver as he works toward a deal with the White House.

The proposal includes extending current tax rates for all income levels and raising revenue by closing loopholes in the tax code.

"Rarely in modern American politics have more counterproductive, more foolish words been set to paper," wrote researchers at the Heritage Foundation in response to part of the letter sent to the White House from seven House leaders that outlined the Republican plan. The Heritage analysis, co-written by Alison Acosta Fraser and J.D. Foster, went on to say: "[T]he Republican counteroffer, to the extent it can be interpreted from the hazy details now available, is a dud. It is utterly unacceptable. It is bad policy, bad economics, and, if we may say so, highly questionable as a negotiating tactic."

Heritage's response echoed the sentiment of many conservatives in Washington who are urging House Republicans to avoid cutting a deal with the president if it means raising taxes.

In an open letter signed by more than 100 prominent conservative activists and organized by the advocacy group Let Freedom Ring, House Republicans were warned that they would not receive support in the future if they "cave" during negotiations.

"In the House, the nation elected in 2012 one of the largest Republican majorities in the past 100 years. You have a mandate to fight for conservative principles that is arguably much broader than the one that narrowly reelected President Barack Obama claims to have for his leftist agenda," the letter read. It was signed by Republican activists like Richard Viguerie, Leadership Institute founder Morton Blackwell, Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly, Media Research Center President Brent Bozell and Republican donor Foster Friess.

"And if Republicans cave in now, when it really counts," the letter continued, "next time you will be weaker, because your conservative base will be outraged. Many who worked hard to elect you in the past will never lift a finger for you again."

In the Senate on Tuesday, South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, one of the tea party's staunchest allies in the upper chamber, accused House Republicans of promoting a plan that would "destroy American jobs."

DeMint's remarks this week, however, seemed to be somewhat of a departure from his characterization of a possible deal before the election, when he said Republicans who don't want to see the automatic defense spending reductions set to automatically trigger next year go into effect "might as well cut a deal" that includes tax increases.

"You can't get a deal with Obama without raising taxes on the producing class of folks," DeMint said in September, according to a report by Bloomberg News. "We might as well cut a deal. If Republicans want to maintain the defense, we're going to have to give tax increases to Obama."

In a statement to Yahoo News, DeMint's spokesman moved to clarify the remarks, saying that he had "simply stated the obvious" and would never support a plan with more taxes.

"Before the election, he simply stated the obvious, that Obama would try to use a lame-duck session to rush through tax hikes that will hurt the economy," DeMint spokesman Wesley Denton said. "His point then was that if Republican leadership wasn't going to stand strong against tax hikes in the lame-duck, they might as well be honest with voters before the election. Sadly, his predictions have proven correct and his long opposition to tax hikes that destroy jobs hasn't changed."

The conservative backlash, of course, could amount to mere noise as Boehner continues his negotiations with the president in search of a deal. The speaker and his allies in the House have spent two years navigating the thorn-riddled path between his party's conservative base and Obama's demands.

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Officials: NATO to decide on missiles for Turkey

BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO foreign ministers are expected to approve Turkey‘s request for Patriot anti-missile systems to bolster its defense against possible strikes from neighboring Syria.

NATO foreign ministers are meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday in Brussels. Parliaments in both nations must approve the deployment, which would also involve several hundred soldiers.

Ankara, which has been highly supportive of the Syrian opposition, wants the Patriots to defend against possible retaliatory attacks by Syrian missiles carrying chemical warheads. NATO leaders have repeatedly said they would provide any assistance Turkey needs.

Europe News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Fleetwood Mac readies tour and new music

NEW YORK (AP) — Fleetwood Mac is heading back on the road, and that means the top-selling group will release new music — sort of.

On its 34-city North American tour, which kicks off April 4 in Columbus, Ohio, the band will perform two new songs, and it could mean a new album will follow. Or not.

Stevie Nicks recently sang on tracks that Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie worked on, calling the sessions “great.” But Nicks also says she’s not sure where the band fits in today’s music industry.

“Whether or not we’re gonna do any more (songs), we don’t know because we’re so completely bummed out with the state of the music industry and the fact that nobody even wants a full record,” she said. “Everybody wants two songs, so we’re going to give them two songs.”

Nicks said depending on the response to the new tracks — which Buckingham calls “the most Fleetwood Mac-y stuff … in a long time” — more material could come next.

“Maybe we’ll get an EP out of it or something,” Buckingham said.

Nicks will continue to record solo albums, though. The group is celebrating the 35th anniversary of the best-selling “Rumours” album, which has moved some 20 million units in the United States. She knows that’s not possible again, despite the success of Adele’s “21,” which has sold 10 million units in America in less than two years.

“This is Adele’s ‘Rumours,’” Nicks said. “She had a baby, she’s going to take a year off to take care of her baby — that’s why I never had any kids. She’s going to go back and start writing again, you never know what the next record’s going to be. Is it going to sell 10 million records? You don’t know,” she said.

Buckingham said he initially wanted to record a new album, but Nicks “wasn’t too into that.” But the guitarist and singer knows that new music isn’t a priority for the band’s fans.

“It wouldn’t matter if they didn’t hear anything new. In a way there’s a freedom to that — it becomes not what you got, but what you do with what you got. Part of the challenge of this tour is figuring out a presentation that has some twists and turns to it without having a full album,” he said.

Fleetwood Mac, which was formed in 1967, last released an album in 2003, though they hit the road in 2009. Nicks and Buckingham — who originally joined the band in 1974 as a couple — both released solo albums and toured last year. Buckingham had suggested that Fleetwood Mac tour last year, but says getting everyone to agree was tough.

“If you look at Fleetwood Mac as a group, you can make the case of saying we’re a bunch of individuals who don’t necessarily belong in the same group together, but it’s the synergy of that that makes us so good. But it also makes the politics a little more tenuous,” he said. “You can say that not only can it be a political minefield, someone’s always causing trouble, right? I caused trouble for years so I can’t point any fingers.”

The tour also includes cities such as New York, Chicago, Boston, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and will end June 12 in Detroit.

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Online:

http://www.fleetwoodmac.com/

You can follow Music Writer Mesfin Fekadu on Twitter at twitter.com/MusicMesfin

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Tapping citizen-scientists for a novel gut check

WASHINGTON (AP) — The bacterial zoo inside your gut could look very different if you’re a vegetarian or an Atkins dieter, a couch potato or an athlete, fat or thin.

Now for a fee — $ 69 and up — and a stool sample, the curious can find out just what’s living in their intestines and take part in one of the hottest new fields in science.

Wait a minute: How many average Joes really want to pay for the privilege of mailing such, er, intimate samples to scientists?

A lot, hope the researchers running two novel citizen-science projects.

One, the American Gut Project, aims to enroll 10,000 people — and a bunch of their dogs and cats too — from around the country. The other, uBiome, separately aims to enroll nearly 2,000 people from anywhere in the world.

“We’re finally enabling people to realize the power and value of bacteria in our lives,” said microbiologist Jack Gilbert of the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory. He’s one of a team of well-known scientists involved with the American Gut Project.

Don’t be squeamish: Yes, we share our bodies with trillions of microbes, living communities called microbiomes. Many of the bugs, especially those in the intestinal tract, play indispensable roles in keeping us healthy, from good digestion to a robust immune system.

But which combinations of bacteria seem to keep us healthy? Which ones might encourage problems like obesity, diabetes or irritable bowel syndrome?

And do diet and lifestyle affect those microbes in ways that we might control someday?

Answering those questions will require studying vast numbers of people. Getting started with a grassroots movement makes sense, said National Institutes of Health microbiologist Lita Proctor, who isn’t involved with the new projects but is watching closely.

After all, there was much interest in the taxpayer-funded Human Microbiome Project, which last summer provided the first glimpse of what makes up a healthy bacterial community in a few hundred volunteers.

Proctor, who coordinated that project, had worried “there would be a real ick factor. That has not been the case,” she said. Many people “want to engage in improving their health.”

Scott Jackisch, a computer consultant in Oakland, Calif., ran across American Gut while exploring the science behind different diets, and signed up last week. He’s read with fascination earlier microbiome research: “Most of the genetic matter in what we consider ourselves is not human, and that’s crazy. I wanted to learn about that.”

Testing a single stool sample costs $ 99 in that project, but he picked a three-sample deal for $ 260 to compare his own bacterial makeup after eating various foods.

“I want to be extra, extra well,” said Jackisch, 42. Differing gut microbes may be the reason “there’s no one magic bullet of diet that people can eat and be healthy.”

It’s clear that people’s gut bacteria can change over time. What this new research could accomplish is a first look at how different diets may play a role, “a much better understanding of what matters and what doesn’t,” said American Gut lead researcher Rob Knight of the University of Colorado, Boulder.

“We don’t just want people that have a gut-ache. We want couch potatoes. We want babies. We want vegans. We want athletes. We want anybody and everybody because we need that complete diversity,” added American Gut co-founder Jeff Leach, an anthropologist.

One challenge is making sure participants don’t expect that a map of their gut bacteria can predict their future health, or suggest lifestyle changes, anytime soon.

“I understand I’m not going to be able to say, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’ll be susceptible to this,’” said Bradley Heinz, 26, a financial consultant in San Francisco. He is paying uBiome $ 119 to analyze both his gut and mouth microbiomes; just the gut is $ 69.

“The more people that participate, the more information comes out and the more that everybody benefits,” he added.

Participants can sign up for either project via the social fundraising site Indiegogo.com over the next month. They also can send scrapings from the skin, mouth and other sites, to analyze that bacteria. Sign up enough family members or body sites, or be tracked over time, and the price can rise into the thousands. American Gut researchers plan some free testing for those who can’t afford the fees, to increase the experiment’s diversity.

Don’t forget the pets: “We sleep with them, play with them, they often eat our food,” Leach said. What bacteria we have in common is the next logical question.

Already, American Gut researchers are preparing to compare what they find in the typical U.S. gut with a few hundred people in rural Namibia, who eat what’s described as hunter-gatherer fare. Also, Leach will spend three months living in Namibia next year, and is storing his own stool samples for before-and-after comparison.

But diet isn’t the only factor. Your bacterial makeup starts at birth: Babies absorb different microbes when they’re born vaginally than when they’re born by C-section, a possible explanation for why cesareans raise the risk for certain infections. Taking antibiotics alters this teeming inner world, and it’s not clear if there are lasting consequences, especially for young children.

Then there’s your environment, such as the infections spread in hospitals. In February, a new University of Chicago hospital building opens and Gilbert will test the surfaces, the patients and their health workers to see how quickly bad bugs can move in and identify which bacteria are protective.

Whatever the findings, all the research marks “a huge teachable moment” about how we interact with microbes, Leach said.

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EDITOR’S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.

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Online:

www.indiegogo.com/americangut

www.indiegogo.com/ubiome

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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