Current medical news from today, including HIV prevention gel for women surprises researchers by failing in a trial, EndoStapling system gets FDA nod, and Supreme Court justices questioned over ethics.

Salix Pharmaceuticals‘ (NASDAQ:SLXP) drug partner Napo Pharmaceuticals has terminated the collaboration agreement between the two companies over Salix’s failure to advance a promising anti-diarrhea drug for AIDS patients fast enough for the California company.Termination of the collaboration to develop the drug candidate crofelemer was effective Nov. 4 — a year to the date of positive [...]

Current medical news from today, including encouraging news for HIV prevention, the Small Business Jobs Act one year later, and tracking how a virus transfers species.

GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) is moving to protect its top-selling HIV drug Epzicom from generic drug competition.ViiV Healthcare, the HIV joint venture of GSK and Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), is suing Teva Pharmaceutical (NASDAQ:TEVA) for infringing on HIV drug Epzicom in violation of the drug’s patent, Bloomberg News reports. The Aug. 5 complaint was filed in federal court in [...]

Immunotherapy company Argos Therapeutics has filed for an initial public stock offering that could raise up to $86.2 million.The Durham, North Carolina-based company has a developed a personalized medicine platform technology whose first target is kidney cancer. CEO Jeff Abbey explained the technology in a MedCity News story that ran in May. The venture capital-backed [...]

AIDS drug company Trimeris (NASDAQ:TRMS) this year vetted an initial list of more than 140 companies in all therapeutic areas and narrowed its business combination prospects to 14, then paired that list even further to five. That list included Synageva BioPharma, the company that in June announced it would acquire Trimeris in a reverse merger.The [...]

Mayo Medical Laboratories is adding a new tuberculosis test that will help physicians better determine the kind of TB afflicting patients.Mayo licensed the diagnostic test from Germany’s Qiagen, a provider of sample and assay technologies. The license expands on what’s currently available in terms of TB testing from Mayo. Currently, tests are done using a [...]

Current medical news and unique business news for anyone who cares about the healthcare industry.A breakthrough for HIV prevention drugs. Two new studies out Wednesday suggest that the spread of HIV in heterosexuals could be prevented by taking the Gilead Sciences drug Truvada. One of the studies was stopped early because it was so clear [...]

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will lead a national research effort to find a cure for HIV with the support of a new $32 million federal grant.The five-year grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, will be administered by the North [...]

…maybe it is time to lift our transatlantic heads up and take in the view of the rest of the planet. While we run back and forth to Europe, clogging our arteries with triple-cream brie, a whole developing world chock full o’ unmet medical needs and experiencing enviable GDP growth goes largely untapped by emerging med tech companies.