Deal extends Cardinal’s reach into home health products and services. 

Cardinal Health is moving into the home medical care market with the $2 billion acquisition of AssuraMed, a privately-held provider of direct-to-consumer medical supplies to patients. The deal will provide Cardinal Health with an integrated delivery network from the hospital to the home to better serve an aging population with chronic conditions.

Computer simulations accurately diagnose and treat, all while saving money, researchers say.

Indiana University researchers have created an artificial intelligence system able to improve patient healthcare while at the same time reducing costs. 

The weekly round-up of failed trials, missed targets, and other business mishaps.

Teva Pharmaceutical may pay up to $2.1 billion in damages for selling generic copies of Pfizer’s heartburn reliever Protonix before the 2011 expiration of the drug’s U.S. patent exclusivity. In late 2007, Teva began selling a lower cost generic version of Protonix, a proton pump inhibitor that reduces gastric acid secretion. With a generic on the market, sales of the branded Protonix dropped 80 percent in 2008, to $395 million. Profits for Wyeth, the U.S. licensee at the time, dropped, prompting the company to lay off thousands of employees.

Companies will collaborate on polio eradication efforts in developing countries.

GlaxoSmithKline and Biological E, an Indian vaccines company, will form a 50/50 joint venture for research and development of a pediatric combination vaccine. 

Bold super-computing effort gains funding to speed understanding of cognition and disease.

Researchers creating the world’s most detailed model of the human brain won a ten-year $1.4 billion (€1 billion) award from the European Commission to support its work. 

Experimental drug offers alternative for common dialysis complication.

Keryx Biopharmaceuticals shares rose the most in nearly four years after the company announced positive results from a late-stage study of its lead product, Zerenex, an experimental treatment for elevated serum phosphorus levels in patients with end-stage renal disease on dialysis.

Efforts to improve quality and reduce costs in healthcare sometimes come in unexpected places. AlixaRx, a new company unveiled last October, thinks it can do this by using technology to bring automated pharmaceutical dispensing machines to long-term care facilities and elsewhere. We spoke to Neil Kurtz, president and CEO of AlixaRx’s sister company Golden Living, where the machines are already being used. Kurtz discusses why these dispensaries promise to improve care, eliminate waste, and cut costs.

Partnership opens new front in company’s effort to develop promising external neuroscience research.

AstraZeneca and Vanderbilt University have signed a research collaboration agreement to identify candidate drugs for treating psychosis and other neuropsychiatric symptoms associated with major brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia.

Government plans to deploy $400 million toward the creation of large-scale VC funds led by private sector.

Improved outlook for biotech spurs opportunity to raise money.