With health care reform evolving and as hospital organizations and physician groups team up to cope with it, Swedish Health Services and Providence Health & Services today announced that they have completed their planned affiliation.

“We want to lead, not follow,” said Swedish CEO Dr. Rod Hochman about the big changes afoot in the nation’s health care industry.

“Our coming together is unique, special, and it puts us out in front of the curve.”

The affiliation is led by a 19-member board, with five members from Swedish and 14 from Providence…

Lees meer..

Longtime Geron Corp. employee David Greenwood, who served as interim CEO for seven months last year, received a lump sum severance payment of $750,000 and a two- to five-month consulting deal that will pay him $400 an hour.

Greenwood, who had been with Geron (NASDAQ: GERN) in various jobs since 1995, left the Menlo Park-based drug development company at the end of last year. He was appointed interim CEO on the departure of Thomas Okarma in February 2011.

Geron hired Chip Scarlett as CEO in September and Greenwood became president and chief financial officer…

Lees meer..

A federal judge has blocked California’s attempt to cut Medi-Cal rates to doctors, dentists, pharmacists and other Medi-Cal providers by 10 percent.

U.S. District Court Judge Christina Snyder granted a preliminary injunction Tuesday that prohibits the state from implementing the cut, which is part of a budget fix adopted by the California Legislature last March.

In twin rulings in December, the same judge tossed California’s 10 percent cuts in Medi-Cal fees to pharmacies and skilled nursing units inside hospitals…

Lees meer..

If you want to know if you’re at risk of premature cardiovascular disease, take a look at your children.

Children with high triglyceride levels at age 12 are more likely than those with normal levels to have heart attacks and strokes by the age of 38, according to a study by Dr. Charles Glueck of Jewish Hospital and Dr. John Morrison of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

“When we identify children with these risk factors early, we can start the children on primary prevention programs to can help reduce their chances of suffering heart attacks and strokes and developing type 2 diabetes later in life,” Glueck said…

Lees meer..

Tranzyme Pharma (Nasdaq:TZYM), a drug development company in Research Triangle Park, on Wednesday announced that it has landed an additional $9.3 million in debt financing from Oxford Finance LLC and Horizon Technology Finance Corp. (Nasdaq:HRZN).

Vipin K. Garg, president and CEO of Tranzyme, says the money will help Tranzyme take one of its drugs to a new drug application later this year.

Because of research and development costs, Tranzyme typically reports net operating losses. Through the first nine months of last year, it reported $13…

Lees meer..

Hercules Technology Growth Capital Inc. said Wednesday it expects a net gain of about $2.2 million to $2.3 million in the first quarter of 2012 and a full repayment of its loan to Barrx Medical Inc., one of its portfolio companies.

Earlier this month, Hercules completed the sale of all its outstanding shares of Sunnyvale-based Barrx to Covidien plc (NYSE:COV) in a deal valued at $325 million.

“This exit is a positive outcome for our shareholders,” said Manuel Henriquez, the president and CEO of Hercules in a prepared statement…

Lees meer..

Merrimack Pharmaceuticals has postponed its $166 million IPO, originally scheduled for this week, citing poor market conditions, according to IPO tracker Renaissance Capital.

The Cambridge-based biotech, which is developing potential treatments for cancer, planned to sell roughly 16.7 million shares of common stock, at an estimated initial offering price of between $8 and $10. The company first filed to go public in July.

Founded in 2000, Merrimack had planned to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol “MACK…

Lees meer..

Wedbush Securities Inc. has downgraded its rating on Meridian Bioscience Inc. (Nasdaq: VIVO) to “underperform” from “neutral.”

The Los Angeles-based investment firm also dropped its price target on the company to $14 from $16.

Wedbush cited Newtown-based Meridian’s recent failure to meet Wall Street expectations. The company makes diagnostic test kits and bioscience products.

Earnings were 17 cents per share, excluding non-recurring items, which was 2 cents below analyst consensus estimates…

Lees meer..

Cells rely on purines, which are types of molecules that make up half of the DNA and RNA building blocks, and are a key component of the chemicals that store a cell’s energy in order to perform many vital functions. The purine supply is strictly controlled by the cells, with any disruption likely to cause serious potential consequences…
Lees meer..

Bypassing the stem cell stage, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California converted mouse skin cells directly into neural precursor cells, the cells that go on to form the three main types of cell in the brain and nervous system. They write about their findings in the 30 January early online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…
Lees meer..