Senate to mull ban on "pay for delay" pharmaceutical deals

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Key Democratic and Republican senators reintroduced legislation on Tuesday that would make it illegal for brand-name pharmaceutical companies to pay generic drug makers to keep their cheaper medicines off the market.

Such deals, in which big drug companies resolve patent litigation with potentially infringing generic firms by reaching a settlement that delays a generic version of a drug in exchange for a payment, have angered U.S. and European antitrust enforcers for years.

The bill is sponsored by Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota and the new chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel, and by Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa.

"I have long supported efforts to crack down on this behavior and the recent rise in pay-for-delay agreements underscores the need for legislation to help make sure people have access to the drugs they need at a price they can afford," Klobuchar said in a statement.

Similar bills, including one in 2010, have failed in part because of opposition from the drug industry, both branded and generic. It was not immediately known if a companion bill would be introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Opponents of the measure are already pressing for meetings with the two lawmakers and are confident that it will go nowhere, said Ralph Neas, chief executive of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association trade group.

"I do believe that a majority of Congress opposes the bill," said Neas, who said the settlements were good for consumers. "I know that (Federal Trade Commission Chairman) Jon (Leibowitz) has this catchy phrase 'pay for delay' but it's wrong. Patent settlements save."

The FTC said in January that brand name drug firms reached agreements with generic manufacturers 40 times in the latest fiscal year, delaying the arrival of cheaper drugs to pharmacists' shelves. That was up from 28 the previous year and the highest since the FTC started tracking them.

The commission has had mixed success in fighting the deals in court, but the issue could be coming to a head.

Most recently, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal by the FTC, which had challenged annual payments of $31 million to $42 million by then-owner Solvay Pharmaceuticals Inc to stop generic versions of AndroGel, a treatment for the underproduction of testosterone, until 2015. AndroGel is now a product of AbbVie.

In Brussels in late January, EU antitrust regulators stepped up their fight against drug companies suspected of blocking cheap generic medicines, charging Johnson & Johnson and Novartis over the painkiller fentanyl.

The European antitrust watchdog said it believed the two had agreed on a "pay-for-delay" deal on generic versions of the drug, hurting Dutch consumers and healthcare providers.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Ros Krasny and Dan Grebler)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senate-mull-ban-pay-delay-pharmaceutical-deals-212628742--finance.html

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Pre-Damaged Luggage Makes a Baggage Handler's Job So Much Easier

The staff at your local airport responsible for getting your bags onto a plane in a timely manner are particularly skilled at damaging and destroying even the most rugged of suitcases. So why not beat them to the punch with pre-distressed luggage that looks like it's already been through countless flights—at least two. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/ctEiyl4OqTE/pre+damaged-luggage-makes-a-baggage-handlers-job-so-much-easier

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Mole smells in stereo

Nostrils of unlovely mammal recognize slight differences in odors

By Tina Hesman Saey

Web edition: February 5, 2013

Enlarge

SMELLS GOOD

The common mole is blind and has a poor sense of touch, but it can smell in stereo. Each nostril receives slightly different scent cues that the animal uses to navigate toward its food, a new study finds.

Credit: K. Catania

The common mole may be homely but its nose is a wonder to behold.

The eastern American mole, also known as the common mole, tracks down an earthworm treat by recognizing the slightly different odor cues entering each nostril, neurobiologist Kenneth Catania of Vanderbilt University in Nashville reports online February 5 in Nature Communications.

The finding suggests that even though mole nostrils are separated by a fraction of a centimeter, each gets its own scent information that can guide an animal?s actions. ?It?s an elegant demonstration of what many people suspected,? says Peter Brunjes, a neuroscientist at the University of Virginia. Previous experiments with people and rats had reached contradictory conclusions regarding whether smell, like sight and hearing, is a bilateral sense.

Enlarge

THE NOSE KNOWS

A common mole sniffs out a piece of food during a laboratory experiment.

Credit: K. Catania

Catania never expected the common mole, Scalopus aquaticus, to have uncommon abilities. ?I?ve described it as the unlucky, stupid cousin of the star-nosed mole,? he says. Star-nosed moles, Condylura cristata, have an incredible sense of touch in their tentacled schnozzes and are among the world?s fastest foragers. But compared with other mole species, the eastern American mole has a poor sense of touch. The animals also can?t see. Catania turned to common moles because he thought they would have a hard time finding food and could be tested against star-nosed moles in future experiments.

But when he placed a common mole in a semicircular arena with a chopped up bit of earthworm as bait, he says, ?it would wiggle its nose around and go in a beeline toward the food.?

Since the moles? other senses are so bad, Catania wondered whether the animals locate their food by smell. He first plugged one of a mole?s nostrils with a short piece of plastic tubing. That caused the mole to veer off course in the direction of the open nostril. Next, Catania stuck small tubes into both nostrils and crossed the tubes so that the right nostril sniffed odors from the left side of the mole?s face and vice versa. The moles behaved as if they had gotten reversed directions to the food, searching to one side before finding the food or missing the earthworm treat entirely.

Catania?s discovery that crossing the nostrils? inputs confuses the animals is strong evidence that moles, and probably other mammals, engage in bi-nostril smelling, Brunjes says. If moles simply sniffed their way toward an ever-stronger scent, then crossing the tubes wouldn?t make a difference.? ?It?s kind of the perfect proof,? he says.

Moles may have evolved to precisely follow a scent trail because they have to dig for their food. ?Being off by half an inch could be hugely energetically expensive,? Catania says.

He is interested in studying whether star-nosed moles traded their sense of smell for better touch. He also wants to know how scent information is wired into the brains of common moles.

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/348069/title/Mole_smells_in_stereo

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Gauge of U.S. business investment plans edges lower

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A gauge of U.S. business investment plans dropped in December, a possible sign companies were losing confidence in the economy's strength due to fears over tighter fiscal policy, government data showed on Monday.

The data from the Commerce Department also gave some positive signals, with a big jump in defense industry orders suggesting some of the surprise fall in U.S. economic output late last year was poised to reverse.

Many economists have expected businesses to invest more timidly because of uncertainty over government spending cuts and tax increases, which had been scheduled to kick in last month. Congress ultimately struck a last-minute deal to avoid or postpone many of the austerity measures.

Signs of any blow to confidence have been difficult to discern from economic data, but Monday's data provided a hint of weakness in December.

The government issued a revised estimate for capital goods orders outside of the defense and aircraft industries, showing they edged 0.3 percent lower in December.

Previously, the government had estimated this closely watched proxy for investment plans had gained 0.2 percent during the month.

U.S. stocks opened lower on Monday, while U.S. Treasuries prices rose.

Overall factory orders rose 1.8 percent during the month. That was below the median forecast of 2.2 percent by analysts polled by Reuters.

Outside of the transportation industry, growth in factory orders rose a meager 0.2 percent in December, with new orders for consumer goods down 0.1 percent.

More volatile components helped make up for that softness, with civilian aircraft orders up 10.1 percent.

Military aircraft orders surged by 56.4 percent, a sign that defense spending could rebound after declining sharply in the fourth quarter.

The drop in defense spending dragged heavily on the economy in the fourth quarter, when gross domestic product posted a surprise contraction according to an advance estimate released last week.

Outside of the defense industry, new factory orders rose a modest 0.3 percent.

(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Neil Stempleman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gauge-u-business-investment-plans-edges-lower-153323557--business.html

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Business Internet Marketing Online Strategy - Mad Marketing Method

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Source: http://www.mad-marketing-method.com/business-internet-marketing-online-strategy/

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Semiconductor physics: Taking control of spin

Jan. 31, 2013 ? Generating and sustaining electrical currents with unique properties for information processing comes closer to reality after a successful theoretical demonstration.

Spintronics is a form of signal processing similar to that used in traditional electronics, but it takes advantage of a property of electrons known as spin. Spin is often visualized as an arrow about which the electron rotates, much like a top spinning around its axis. Generating a stream of electrons in which these 'arrows' are all parallel -- a so-called spin-polarized current -- is the foundation upon which spintronics is based. Imperfections in a material, however, can easily destroy polarization. Simply applying an oscillating voltage across the device could help to maintain a spin-polarized current even in the presence of impurities, according to theoretical research by Seng Ghee Tan at the A*STAR Data Storage Institute, Singapore, and co?workers.

Tan and his colleagues considered a two-dimensional electron gas: a system in which the electrons can move only in one plane. When a spin-polarized current flows through such a material, the spins interact with the electron's motion through an effect known as Rashba spin-orbit coupling. This makes the spins start to 'wobble' or precess: at first they point upwards but then point downwards, and this reduces the total spin polarization to zero. "We want to prolong the life span of a spin current in the channel by controlling the strength of the Rashba coupling," says Tan. To this end, he and his team investigated a device, known as a spin-current rectifier, that lets a spin current flow with one particular polarization -- upwards only, for example.

The researchers developed a simple mathematical equation that predicts the behavior of the spin current as an alternating voltage is applied across the device. Their model shows that when the frequency of the voltage is zero, the spin polarization goes back and forth as expected. "However, by increasing the frequency, we see an increasingly asymmetrical pattern of oscillation in favor of positive polarization," explains Tan. "We call this a gradual process of rectification."

Their approach can even suppress precessional motion entirely. When the external modulation frequency is much faster than the natural precessional frequency of the spins, known as the Larmor frequency, the spins have no time to change direction so remain pointing upwards. Consequently, the system maintains a spin-polarized current.

Once spin currents can be sustained, spintronics will have all the potential of electronics with the additional advantage of an extra degree of control. The spin-current rectifier investigated by Tan and his co-workers could therefore become a vital component in this future technology.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Cong Son Ho, Mansoor B. A. Jalil, and Seng Ghee Tan. Sustainable spin current in the time-dependent Rashba system. J. Appl. Phys., 2012 DOI: 10.1063/1.3693662

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/computers_math/information_technology/~3/Yd23tfjuWYk/130203145426.htm

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From the Editor's Desk: Tales of incredulousness

As is so often the case in life, the little things can make a big difference. I was worried that our little Valentines Day contest -- we're giving away a pair of Nexus 7s and Nexus 4s -- would come off as too cheesy. Sappy, even for me, a guy who grew up believing John Cusack's "Better Off Dead" was actually a preferred way for high school to pan out. (Sadly, I played trombone instead of the sax -- not quite the same romantic effect there. And no bitchin' Camaro, but my sun-faded 1985 BMW 325e with no air conditioning, speedometer and, occasionally, brakes, at least sounded cool on paper.)

But it's working. At the time of this writing, there are some 28 pages of entries. Somewhere around 600 pictures posted of all kinds of happy couples as I sit here Sunday morning finishing this column. Pictures of boys and girls. Boys and boys. Girls and girls. Dogs. Cats. Even saw someone with someone in a cow suit or something. (I don't judge.) In a job like this, it's both a blessing and a curse to not actually have to interact with people all the time. But every single time -- from the occasional reader meet-up (and we really need to do more of those) to events like Google I/O and CES -- getting to meet even just one of our reader is energizing in a way that's tough to describe.

So thank you for that. Each and every one of you. I can't wait to pack up the hardware and get it off to a couple happy couples. But we've got another couple weeks -- and hopefully many more inspiring pictures -- to go.

And now, a few more thoughts to keep things going ...

read more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/fmm-e2yc-Ug/story01.htm

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