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US readies special team for opioid crisis; EU to approve Bayer's Monsanto bid

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US readies special team for opioid crisis; EU to approve Bayer's Monsanto bid

Top news

* U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Justice Department would bring all of its efforts intended to curb the opioid crisis under one banner through the creation of a new task force, dubbed PIL — Prescription Interdiction and Litigation.

Meanwhile, a group of eight Republican and Democratic senators unveiled new legislation to authorize an additional $1 billion in new funds to battle the opioid epidemic. It also would increase civil and criminal penalties for drugmakers that fail to report suspicious orders of opioids or maintain effective controls against diversion of the products.

* The German life sciences giant Bayer AG is close to getting approval, with conditions, from European regulators for its $62.5 billion acquisition of U.S. seed company Monsanto Co., Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.

* Bayer said its fourth-quarter 2017 core EPS from continuing operations came in at €1.41, up 28.2% from €1.10 in the year-ago period.

* Spanish pharmaceuticals company Grifols SA said adjusted group profit for full-year 2017 rose 5.9% year over year to €660.2 million from €623.3 million.

M&A and capital markets

* Pharmacy chain Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. and drug distributor AmerisourceBergen Corp. have ended high-level talks without reaching a deal, CNBC reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Drug and product pipeline

* In the wake of a U.S. rejection of a late-stage multiple sclerosis therapy, Celgene Corp. executives stressed that the company is still on track for future sales and pipeline developments.

* The European Commission approved Swiss group Roche Holding AG's hemophilia A drug Hemlibra to treat patients who have developed resistance to other treatments.

* Novo Nordisk filed a biologics license application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a marketing authorization application with the European Medicines Agency for N8-GP to treat people with hemophilia A.

* The China Food and Drug Administration approved BeiGene, Ltd.'s Revlimid to treat certain patients with a type of blood cancer. BeiGene is marketing the drug under an exclusive license from Celgene.

* Japanese drugmaker Hisamitsu Pharmaceutical Co., Inc. said the phase 3 study in Japan of its transdermal patch for Parkinson's disease met its main goal.

Operational activity

* U.K.-based AstraZeneca PLC is spinning off a new biotech company, Viela Bio, to develop medicines for autoimmune diseases, getting funding of up to $250 million from a group of investors.

* Novo Nordisk A/S's Novo Holdings will back a $165 million fund to invest in companies developing drugs to combat antimicrobial resistance. Novo said the fund will focus on 12 families of bacteria that pose the greatest threat to human health according to the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

* MiMedx Group Inc. responded to a report by Bloomberg News that the biotech firm is under federal investigation over its business practices. The Georgia-based company said it is unaware of any investigation and denied that it had charged higher prices to federal accounts than it did to commercial accounts.

Our features

* Biopharma share buybacks boom in the wake of tax reform, Q4'17 earnings: Some of the world's largest biopharmaceutical companies are making moves to buy back stock in the year ahead, together racking up more than $38 billion in repurchase plans announced since December 2017.

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* Consolidation concerns encourage proponents of physician-owned hospitals: Growing concerns over hospital mergers and recent comments by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar are encouraging those who want to make it easier for physicians to own hospitals.

* Novoheart tackles heart of the problem in drug discovery: Taking a few drops of blood from a patient, Novoheart's technology platform — called MyHeart — can grow jars of mini hearts based on the patient's genetic material in the blood.

Other features

* The Financial Times published a special report on rare diseases that included articles on growing corporate investment in the development of orphan drugs and the lack of insurance coverage in China, which has the world's largest population of rare disease patients.

The day ahead

Early morning futures indicators pointed to a higher opening for the U.S. market.

In Asia, the Hang Seng was down 1.36% to 30,844.72 and the Nikkei 225 fell 1.44% to 22,068.24.

In Europe as of midday, the FTSE 100 dropped 0.26% to 7,263.25, and the Euronext 100 slid 0.46% to 1,027.36.

The Daily Dose is updated as of 6:30 a.m. ET. Some external links may require a subscription.