According to the justice department, in 2002 Brisbane-based InterMune put out a press release under the direction of former CEO Scott Harkonen saying a clinical trial showed Actimmune effective in treating idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
The trial however, showed the exact opposite.
Actimmune has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration only for severe osteoporosis and chronic granulomatous disease.
As a result, former Intermune CEO Scott Harkonen was indicted Tuesday on charges he falsely promoted the company’s drug Actimmune as a lung disease treatment. InterMune agreed in October 2006 to pay almost $37 million to resolve criminal and civil charges in connection with the allegations.
Business Week reports that the board of medical device maker Medtronic Inc. has followed through on a previously announced decision to promote William Hawkins to chief executive officer. Former CEO Arthur Collins retired but will remain chairman of the board, the company said.
Hawkins’ ascension to CEO was part of a succession plan put in place when Collins told the company of his retirement plan several years ago. Collins had a 15 year stint with Medtronic and was CEO since 2001.
New CEO William Hawkins has been in the medical device industry for 30 years has been president and COO since 2004.
Last night Barry Bonds broke the all-time home-run record when he hit career homer # 756.
It didn’t take long for Victor Conte, the man at the center of the BALCO scandal to come forward and steal some of the spotlight from Bonds. Conte said that he’s convinced he played a small, but important, role in Barry Bonds’ coronation as Major League Baseball’s home run king, saying he designed a complex nutritional regimen from 2000 to 2003 in conjunction with an intense weightlifting program that enabled Bonds to significantly increase his power.
Conte who served prison time for selling designer steroids from his Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, said the supplements he sold Bonds were all legal. “I never gave him steroids,” Conte said. “I never had those discussions with Barry because there was no need to.”
He said Bonds’ personal trainer Greg Anderson also deserves some credit for helping Bonds break Hank Aaron’s home-run record.
Anderson has been in a federal minimum security prison since November for refusing to testify in the federal government’s perjury probe of the new home-run king. There is speculation that Bonds has plans to “Take Care” of Anderson once he’s released.
Forbes reports that Roche Holdings AG’s new CEO, Severin Schwan hopes that new partner Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc will be Roche’s ’second Genentech’ in the US, he said in an interview with Swiss weekly SonntagsZeitung.”Alnylam offers us entry to a new technology platform to develop medications. It opens up a new front in biotechnology,” said Schwan.
Earlier this month, Roche entered an alliance with Alnylam, obtaining a non-exclusive license to its genetic therapeutics platform in exchange for $331 million in upfront cash payments and equity investment.
Biotechnology company Genentech, which is majority owned by Roche, recently reported a 41% boost in second-quarter profit on sales of its blockbuster cancer drugs.
Fortune Magazine named Genentech number one on its 2006 list of the “100 Best Companies To Work For.” This was the first number one ranking for the company. In 2007, it dropped to second place, behind Google. The company has been named to the list for nine consecutive years. The ranking is based on anonymous employee responses to a survey as well as an evaluation of the company’s policies and culture.
Genentech’s phenomenal product successes and exponential growth has created hundreds if not thousands of millionaires over the past several years.
