Branded

CINCINNATI — Prasco Labs will distribute an authorized generic for reducing serum phosphate in patients with end-stage renal disease under a contract with Shire, Prasco said Thursday.

The company, which focuses on authorized generic drugs, announced the deal for lanthanum carbonate chewable tablets in the 500-mg, 750-mg and 1,000-mg strengths. The drug is a version of Shire's Fosrenol. Authorized generics are branded drugs marketed under their generic names at a discounted price, usually through a third-party company under contract with the branded drug's manufacturer.

NEW YORK — Contrary to the pharmaceutical industry’s commonly-held belief that active Rx and OTC brand consumers are harder to find online than offline, a new study released Tuesday reveals that the online audience is just as active — and for select categories, more active — than the general population.

LEBANON, N.H. — Medicare beneficiaries' use of medications — both effective and risky — varies widely across different regions of the United States, according to a new report.

DEERFIELD, Ill. — The 2012-2013 flu season was one of the most severe in the United States in more than a decade and, according to a new study, had two to three times the impact than a more typical flu season on the workplace, school, family and other segments of people’s everyday lives. A new report from Walgreens released Wednesday suggests U.S. adults missed 230 million work days last season, while children lost more than 90 million school days due to flu-related illness.  

NEW YORK — Deloitte plans to launch a data-mining system next month that it said would provide life-sciences organizations more access to the "front lines" of patient care and help them develop more personalized medicines based on clinical data more quickly and at a lower cost than before.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Patients taking a drug used for weight loss were able to reduce their chances of developing Type 2 diabetes, according to a new study.

According to data from a 475-patient study published in the journal Diabetes Care, Vivus' Qsymia (phentermine and topiramate) reduced the annualized incidence rate of Type 2 diabetes by up to 78.7% in high-risk, overweight or obese patients with prediabetes or metabolic syndrome. Prediabetes is a condition in which a person has elevated blood sugar and a high risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.

SAN ANTONIO — Mission Pharmacal on Wednesday announced that a federal district court in Texas has upheld its patent that covers the company's prescription-only prenatal vitamin brands. "Mission Pharmacal has successfully asserted the dual-iron ('247) patent used in its popular CitraNatal family of prenatal vitamins, preserving Mission Pharmacal's high quality formulation pregnant women have counted on for years," stated Mission Pharmacal general counsel Lee Cusenbary.

LONDON — AstraZeneca has acquired a British developer of biotech drugs for treating cancer, AstraZeneca said Tuesday.

The company said its MedImmune subsidiary had acquired privately held Spirogen and also entered into a collaboration with ADC Therapeutics to develop two of ADC's antibody-drug conjugate programs, currently in pre-clinical development. MedImmune will make an equity investment in ADC, which has an existing licensing agreement with Spirogen.