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Bayer Q3 profit falls YOY; AstraZeneca sells rights to lung drug for $1.5B

Top news

* Bayer AG said third-quarter core net income from continuing operations was €1.17 billion, or €1.19 per share, down from €1.29 billion, or €1.45 per share, a year earlier. During the company's Nov. 13 earnings call, Bayer CEO Werner Baumann stood by the safety of glyphosate, the active ingredient in its unit Monsanto Co.'s weed killer Roundup, saying the chemical is harmless when used properly.

* AstraZeneca PLC is selling the U.S. rights to its lung disease drug Synagis to Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB, or Sobi, for an upfront payment of $1 billion in cash and $500 million worth of ordinary shares, representing an 8% ownership interest in Sobi. AstraZeneca will also receive up to $470 million in sales-related payments for Synagis, which treats serious lower respiratory tract infection in infants and young children.

* Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. reported a net loss for the quarter ended Sept. 30 of 2.19 billion Indian rupees, or 91 paise per share, compared to the year-ago profit of 9.12 billion rupees, or 3.80 rupees per share. For the half year ended Sept. 30, net profit rose year over year to 7.64 billion rupees, or 3.18 rupees per share, from 4.87 billion rupees, or 2.03 rupees per share

* Antibiotics are consumed at a higher rate in some countries, a potential signal that these drugs are being overused, while other nations have low consumption, a possible indication of shortages, the World Health Organization said in its recent report on surveillance of antibiotic consumption. In line with its findings, the agency called for action to regulate the use of antibiotics to help fight antimicrobial resistance and to ensure that these medicines are accessible to everyone.

On the policy front

* The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published updated guidelines for physical activity for the first time in 10 years, suggesting more exercise, or between 150 minutes and 300 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity for adults.

M&A and capital markets

* India's Cipla Ltd. agreed to acquire Avenue Therapeutics Inc., a New York-based company that markets post-operative pain drug Tramadol. Through its unit InvaGen Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cipla will initially acquire 33.3% of Avenue Therapeutics for $35 million, and will later purchase Avenue's remaining shares for up to $180 million.

* Deer Park, Ill.-based Eton Pharmaceuticals Inc. priced its IPO of 3.6 million common shares at $6 apiece to raise gross proceeds of about $21.6 million. Eton's shares will trade on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker ETON.

* Australia's MGC Pharmaceuticals Ltd. agreed to sell its cosmetics business MGC Derma to Cannaglobal Canada Co. Inc. Privately held cannabis investment company Cannaglobal will issue 10% of its ordinary shares to MGC Pharmaceuticals.

Drug and product pipeline

* Corvus Pharmaceuticals Inc. said its medicine CPI-444, in combination with Roche Holding AG's Tecentriq, prolonged the lives of certain patients with renal cell carcinoma — the most common type of kidney cancer — in an ongoing early-stage trial. In a separate ongoing phase 1/1b trial, Corvus said its CPI-006 drug, in combination with CPI-444 and in combination with Merck & Co. Inc.'s blockbuster cancer therapy Keytruda, blocked a certain protein that helps cancer cells grow.

* Mesoblast Ltd.'s mid-stage study of its cell therapy MPC-150-IM did not meet the main goal of temporarily doing away with support from an implant in certain heart failure patients, but the Australian company believes there is a potential pathway to bring the product to the market.

* MyoKardia Inc.'s lead candidate mavacamten demonstrated improvement in relaxing the heart muscle in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a genetic heart condition that causes the heart to over-squeeze and over-contract, restricting blood flow, according to results from clinical and preclinical trials of the medicine presented at the latest American Heart Association meeting in Chicago.

* Innovent Biologics Inc.'s new drug application for IBI303, a biosimilar candidate to AbbVie Inc.'s Humira, the world's best-selling drug, was accepted for review in China. Innovent's submission to the National Medical Products Administration included data from late-stage trials that compared IBI303's efficacy and safety with Humira's in patients with ankylosing spondylitis, a type of arthritis that affects the spine.

Operational activity

* Nestlé Health Science will raise its stake in allergy-focused drugmaker Aimmune Therapeutics Inc. with a $98 million investment. The Nestlé SA unit will get a stake of about 19% in Aimmune with the purchase of 3,237,529 newly issued Aimmune common shares at $30.27 per share, bringing Nestlé's total investment in the drugmaker to $273 million.

* The Singapore International Arbitration Centre ruled against Phosphagenics Ltd. in a dispute against Mylan NV. The arbitrator dismissed Phosphagenics' claim that Mylan had not used commercially reasonable efforts to develop an antibiotic known as daptomycin using the company's proprietary drug delivery system.

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Other features

* According to The New York Times, spending on U.S. medicines began to shoot up in the late 1990s as expensive new cancer and hypertension therapies were brought to the market. The same trend was seen in 2014 amid the influx of costly specialty drugs for hepatitis C, cystic fibrosis and other conditions.

The day ahead

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

In Asia, Hang Seng rose 0.62% to 25,792.87, while the Nikkei 225 fell 2.06% to 21,810.52.

In Europe, around midday, the FTSE 100 rose 0.23% to 7,069.93, and the Euronext 100 gained 0.36% to 989.78.

Click here to read about today's financial markets, setting out the factors driving stocks, bonds and currencies around the world ahead of the New York open.

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