The Day In Review: Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation Gets Approval For Hypertensive Drug Tekturna

March 6, 2007 -- Novartis received FDA approval for Tekturna, a first-in-class blood pressure treatment with blockbuster potential; BioCryst out-licensed the Japanese rights for peramivir, its flu drug, to Shionogi; InterMune stopped its Phase III trial of Actimmune because the drug was not effective; Replidyne reported its antibiotic for ear infection passed a Phase II trial; Sunesis began dosing patients with advanced B-cell malignancies in a Phase I trial; Alkermes completed enrollment in a Phase I/II test of its drug for alcohol dependence; Pozen reported its coated aspirin drug candidate passed a proof of concept test; EntreMed began a Phase II trial of Panzem in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma; and Amgen found out a Medicare program will no longer pay for use of anemia drug Aranesp in cancer patients. The Centient Biotech 200™ climbed 45.5 points to 3834, an increase of 1.20%. More details...