BTG builds interventional medicine platform with deals
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's BTG said it would make two acquisitions, one extending its expertise in liver cancer and the other a treatment for severe blood clots, to create an interventional medicine business with potential sales of $1 billio...

Saudi Arabia confirms another death from SARS-like virus
DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has announced another death from the SARS-like novel coronavirus (nCoV) in its central al-Qassim region, bringing the total number of deaths in the kingdom to 17. A non-Saudi, whose nationality and age were not given...

J&J plans filing on more than 10 new drugs by 2017
(Reuters) - Johnson & Johnson said on Thursday it plans to submit more than 10 new products for regulatory approval by 2017, including drugs to treat hepatitis C, immune diseases and schizophrenia, and vaccines for flu, rabies and polio. It said p...

Birth control coverage up for federal appeal
DENVER (AP) — In the most prominent challenge of its kind, Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. is asking a federal appeals court Thursday for an exemption from part of the federal health care law that requires it to offer employees health coverage that includ...

UN: 22 deaths worldwide from coronavirus
GENEVA (AP) — A new coronavirus has now claimed 22 lives worldwide out of 44 lab-confirmed cases, mostly in Saudi Arabia, World Health Organization officials said Thursday.

When it comes to deadly viruses, what's in a name?
By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent LONDON (Reuters) - For a pathogen with such a short history, the mysterious new virus killing people in the Middle East and Europe has already had an amazing array of names. It first surfaced last ...

Los Angeles voters OK move to curtail medical marijuana outlets
By Alex Dobuzinskis LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Voters strongly supported a ballot measure to sharply curtail the number of medical marijuana dispensaries permitted to operate in Los Angeles while boosting taxes on the sale of pot for health reasons, ...

Swiss billionaires buy Merck Serono HQ for biotech campus
By Caroline Copley ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli has bought back the Geneva headquarters of his former biotech firm Serono, hoping to establish a biotech research campus. After selling the family business to German drugma...

Schools should make exercise 'core' subject, U.S. panel urges
By Susan Heavey WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. schools need to boost efforts to get students moving, and make gym class as critical as other core subjects if they want to increase test scores as well as students' general well-being, a leading gro...

U.S. government taps GlaxoSmithKline for new antibiotics
By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) - The U.S. government has signed an antibiotics development deal worth up to $200 million with GlaxoSmithKline to tackle the dual threats of drug resistance and bioterrorism. The collaboration, the first of its ki...