Large Nfl Players Are Prone to High Blood Pressure
Compared with other men their age, the National Football League players studied were more than twice as likely to have high blood pressure – 14 percent versus 6 percent for non-players.
Among the biggest players – linemen with a body mass index in the obese range – about 90 percent had either high blood pressure or pre-hypertension, which is less dangerous but still risky.
The biggest players also had worse levels of “good” cholesterol and blood fats called triglycerides, but fewer signs of pre-diabetes than non-players.
The NFL and study authors downplayed the negative findings from a pool of 504 players of all sizes. Except for high blood pressure, the authors said, players on average faced no greater heart disease risks than men their same age in the general population.
But heart disease experts not involved in the study said grouping lean quarterbacks with big beefy linemen doesnt make sense.
“Its mixing apples and oranges,” said Cleveland Clinic heart specialist Dr. Steven Nissen. He said the results show “its unhealthy to have excess body fat whether youre an athlete or not.”
The study appears in Wednesdays Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr. Daniel Jones, a former American Heart Association president, said more favorable results on some measures “shouldnt be reassuring” because high blood pressure is so closely related to future heart problems.
The research didnt look at actual heart disease, but a previous study found that retired NFL linemen faced increased chances of dying from heart problems compared with other players and the general population.
Justin Bannan, a 6-foot-3, 310-pound defensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens was among the study subjects. By standard criteria, hed be considered obese with a BMI over 38. Other than that, Bannan said his results were “pretty normal” and he feels “pretty fit for the size I am.”
“The problem is when youre done playing, as a lineman, youre going to have to make some changes” to avoid health risks, he said.
The new study involved 504 players aged 27 on average, or about one-quarter of NFL players excluding rookies.
Their 2007 health records were compared with data from almost 2,000 similar-aged non-playing men in a different health study.
Nearly 58 percent of the players had a body mass index of at least 30, in the obese range. But all 109 of the offensive linemen were obese, versus 16 percent of the comparison group.
The good news was that in both groups, only about one quarter had unhealthy levels of “good” HDL cholesterol, roughly 8 percent had high levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol and about 13 percent had high triglyceride levels.
And on average, only 7 percent of NFL players and 9 percent of the biggest ones had elevated blood sugar levels that increase chances of developing diabetes, versus 16 percent of non-players.
But 42 percent of the 109 biggest players had unhealthy levels of good cholesterol and almost 22 percent had high triglycerides.
New Fda Chiefs Stress Science, Better Nourishment Precaution
Expect a “modern food-safety system focused on prevention of contamination,” FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg and her deputy, Joshua Sharfstein, wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Even its defenders acknowledge the FDA – the nations chief consumer protection agency – is struggling, given increasing responsibilities overseeing ever-more-complex health industries, but not a budget sufficient to do the job. An independent review in 2007 concluded lives were at risk, and morale plummeted as the agencys own scientists charged their safety concerns were dismissed by leaders too cozy with industry.
Hamburg, who was just sworn in on Friday, and Sharfstein have pledged to restore the FDAs credibility. The two physicians introduced themselves to the countrys doctors Tuesday in an article published online by the respected medical journal – and they didnt underestimate the work ahead.
One priority: Working with the Agriculture Department to improve food safety, following some high-profile crises including the peanut butter outbreak earlier this year that sickened nearly 700 people and is blamed for at least nine deaths. Peanut Corp. of America is under criminal investigation for allegedly shipping peanut butter and another ingredient used in thousands of other products that it knew to be tainted.
That outbreak “represented far more than a sanitation problem at one troubled facility. It reflected a failure of the FDA and its regulatory partners to identify risk and to establish and enforce basic preventive controls,” the duo wrote. “And it exposed the failures of scores of food manufacturers to adequately monitor the safety of ingredients purchased from this facility.”
The FDAs success shouldnt be judged by how many factories it inspects or drugs it approves, but in its overall work to improve public health, the pair wrote. For example, FDA scientists are working behind the scenes to grow the new swine-flu virus and make the ingredients necessary to test if vaccines against it are potent enough, and eventually will oversee vaccine production quality.
“The agencys success will be determined by the nations access to a safe and effective vaccine,” the pair wrote.
And while “the FDA must make difficult decisions in the absence of ideal information,” they acknowledged that recent controversies were “opening the door to legitimate questions from the media, the public and Congress about whether the public interest is being served.”
To help get back on track, the new bosses promised “a culture that encourages scientific exchange” and to better explain the science behind their decisions to the public.
Us Cancer Fatality Rate Drops Again In 2006
About 560,000 people died of cancer that year, according to an American Cancer Society report released Wednesday. The new numbers show the death rate fell by less than 2 percent, but since that decline was better than the previous year, the cancer society applauded the progress.
Others said the change was not a big deal.
“The improvement was modest,” said Dr. Michael Goodman, an Emory University researcher who specializes in cancer statistics.
Cancer is the nations No. 2 killer, behind heart disease, and accounts for nearly a quarter of annual deaths. The cancer death rate has been falling since the early 1990s.
The new rate shows 181 cancer deaths per 100,000 people. That was down from about 184 in 2005.
It takes a rate decline of at least 2 percent to offset population growth and cause a drop in the actual number of cancer deaths. That happened in 2002 and 2003 for the first time since 1930. But it hasnt happened since.
The explanation for why the death rate has fallen depends on the type of cancer. For example, better screening has improved deaths from colon cancer. Treatment advances are more of a factor in leukemia death rates. And smoking cessation is the main reason behind improvements in male lung cancer deaths.
“What we call cancer is really a great variety of different conditions,” Goodman said.
Lung cancer accounted for nearly 30 percent of cancer deaths in 2006. Cancers of the colon and rectum accounted for 10 percent, breast cancer in females about 7 percent and prostate cancers in men about 5 percent.
The statistical report is based on the cancer societys analysis of federal data.
Separate numbers on specific cancer death rates for 2006 from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sheds more light on the picture. The CDC recently reported death rates fell for:
- Lung and trachea cancers, from 54 deaths per 100,000 in 2005 to 51.5 in 2006.
- Breast cancer, from 27 to 23.5 per 100,000.
Overall, its hard to know exactly what drives one years decline in cancer deaths, because the answer is rooted in the past, said Ahmedin Jemal, the cancer society official who lead the research behind the new report.
“When you introduce a change in screening or prevention, it takes five years or 10 years” to see the impact on cancer death rates, Jemal said. Treatment advances can have a more immediate impact, he added.
Cancer society officials estimate that 650,000 deaths were avoided from 1990 to 2005 because of the decline in the death rate. They predict that 1,479,350 new cancer cases will be diagnosed in 2009, and that there will be 562,340 deaths.
The new report is being released Wednesday online, and will be published in the July/August print issue of a Cancer Society publication, CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.
Medical Report: Cancer Patient Loses Fingerprints
The 62-year-old man was taking capecitabine, or Xeloda, to treat head and neck cancer. Upon arriving in the U.S., immigration officials asked him for his fingerprints. But the drug had caused so much redness and peeling to his fingers that the patient, identified only as Mr. S., had none.
Customs officials held Mr. S. for four hours before deciding he was not a security threat, according to the case published Wednesday in a letter to the Annals of Oncology journal.
Capecitabine is a common cancer drug, routinely given to patients with head, neck and kidney cancers as well as lymphomas and leukemias. Doctors said very few patients temporarily lose their fingerprints while on Xeloda, but it does happen.
“Most patients will complain theyre having difficulty holding things or sensing things,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, who was not linked to the case. “Ive never had a patient running into a problem with police authorities, but this is not an exaggeration. It could actually happen.”
After returning home, Mr. S. asked his oncologist, Dr. Eng-Huat Tan at the National Cancer Centre in Singapore, to write a letter certifying he was on capecitabine.
Surprised by Mr. S.s predicament, Tan recommended in his letter to the journal that patients taking capecitabine carry a similar doctors note if they are traveling to the United States.
Unlike most other countries, American immigration officials take two fingerprints from foreign visitors.
Tan said up to 40 percent of patients on the drug develop a side effect known as hand-foot syndrome, which causes redness, peeling, numbness and tingling. Of those patients, only a small percentage actually lose their fingerprints.
“Patients probably would not notice anything until they travel to the U.S. and discover to their horror that their fingerprints are gone,” Tan said. Mr. S. was Tans only patient to report such a predicament, but Tan said a handful of other cases were described on cancer blogs.
Once patients stop taking the drug and apply ice to their hands, their fingerprints will return in about a month.
Brawley guessed that U.S. officials became suspicious because criminals sometimes erase their fingerprints with sandpaper or dip them in acid, which would appear very similar to how Mr. Ss fingers looked.
But he says there are too many side effects from Xeloda, including a weakened immune system and increased cancer risk, that it would be unlikely anyone would take the drug for less-than-honorable reasons.
Diabetes More Likely to Strike The Young In Asia
Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Wednesday said the disease has turned into a global problem, with the number of victims expected to grow from 240 million in 2007 to 380 million in 2025.
More than 60 percent of those will be in Asia, the worlds fastest growing region, with low- and middle-income countries hardest hit.
India will see its numbers grow from 40 million to nearly 70 million; China 39 million to 59 million; and Bangladesh 3.8 million to 7.4 million, the authors wrote, citing figures from the International Diabetes Federation. Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and others will also see their figures skyrocket.
Frank Hu, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, noted the disease is associated with serious complications such as heart disease, stroke and renal failures – all of which are expensive to treat.
Without strong government policy, education and good clinical care, Asias escalating epidemic could “erase economic gains made in recent decades,” said Hu, one of the authors.
Trends of diabetes in the region are influenced by everything from genetic makeup and cultural differences to smoking and degrees of urbanization, the JAMA study showed. But the most startling findings – which tended to vary from country to country – related to body mass and age.
Obesity has long been seen as a major factor leading to type 2 diabetes in nations across Europe and North America.
But while Asians still weigh less than their Western counterparts, theyve gotten fatter around the waist – seen as particularly detrimental with respect to diabetes. It is around the abdomen that fat stores excess energy and releases chemicals that control metabolism and the use of insulin.
So while people from Japan in the east to Pakistan in the west generally have lower body mass indexes, a figure determined by dividing weight by height, “they can have a similar or even higher prevalence of diabetes than Western countries,” the study showed.
Stephen Corbett, a professor at the school of Public Health at the University of Sydney, said all developing countries that are starting to have relatively stable food supplies – and more sedentary Western lifestyles – are seeing diabetes in epidemic proportions.
“For thousands of years, most people in China, India, Indonesia, were subsistence farmers,” he said, noting it was a marginal existence for most, with food shortages often occurring several months a year.
“It took 150 or 200 years for Europeans to make the dietary transition that happened in Asia in the last 40 to 50 years,” said Corbett, who is not connected with the study. “I think that the diabetes epidemic is a direct result of that.”
This appears to be the result of both low birth weights, which are common in developing countries, and over-nutrition in later life.
The report says this may be partly because Asian women are two- to three-times as likely to have gestational diabetes as their white counterparts.
“Their offspring exhibit early features of metabolic syndrome, thus setting up a vicious cycle of diabetes begetting diabetes,” Hu and the other authors wrote.
The findings were based on analysis of hundreds of articles, data and studies published between January 1980 and March 2009.
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Ranbaxy Chief Executive Resigns In Daiichi Sankyo Turnaround Policy
Ranbaxy, whose exports face a ban by U.S. regulators, said yesterday Chief Operating Officer Atul Sobti has replaced Singh. Sobti said the company, in which Daiichi Sankyo paid about $5 billion for a 64 percent stake last year, has submitted a plan to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in efforts to resume sales of some drugs to that country.
Shares of Ranbaxy, Indias largest drugmaker, jumped as much as 23 percent, the most since at least 1991. Sobti, who was responsible for global operations at Ranbaxy, has been tasked by the Japanese company headed by Takashi Shoda to restore investor confidence in a stock thats the worst performer on Indias Sensex index this year.
“It was necessary for Mr. Singh to go,” said Fumiyoshi Sakai, an analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG, who rates Daiichi Sankyo shares “neutral.” “Mr. Sobti seems to have a good reputation, and I expect the new appointment will do well for Ranbaxys business going forward.”
Ranbaxy soared 19 percent to 262.90 rupees as of 1:01 p.m. in Mumbai trading, valuing the company at 110.5 billion rupees ($2.3 billion). The stock had fallen 13 percent this year as of the last trading session, while Indias benchmark Sensitive index jumped 44 percent.
Among 32 analysts tracked by Bloomberg, 23 recommend investors sell Ranbaxy shares.
Daiichi Sankyo paid 488.3 billion yen ($5.1 billion) for a controlling stake in the Indian drugmaker last year.
Rich Experience
“Mr. Sobti has rich experience in managing companies and a high reputation internally and externally,” Mamoru Tsunoda, a spokesman at Daiichi Sankyo, said by telephone from Tokyo today. “He is also on the frontline to solve the issue with the FDA.”
“The management change reflects what Shoda said earlier that we get more involved with Ranbaxys management,” the spokesman said. Daiichi Sankyo may assign more employees to its Indian operations, he said.
Daiichi Sankyo climbed 4.2 percent to close at 1,748 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Shares of the drugmaker have fallen 17 percent this year, valuing the company at 1.24 trillion yen ($13 billion).
Difficult Decision
“Its all in the papers. Ive nothing more to add,” Singh said by phone today, when asked about why he was stepping down early and his plans after resigning.
The former chief executive said he quit in a “mutually arrived decision” after a board meeting yesterday, the Economic Times newspaper reported. Singh told the newspaper he will focus on his familys financial and health-care services businesses.
Singh and his family previously held a 34.8 percent stake in Ranbaxy. They sold the shares for 95.8 billion rupees as part of the 64 percent bought by Daiichi Sankyo, the Japanese drugmaker said in a Nov. 7 statement.
Ranbaxy started life in 1939 as a distributor of drugs from Japans Shionogi & Co., according to “The Ranbaxy Story” written by Bhupesh Bhandari. The company was bought by Bhai Mohan Singh, grandfather of Malvinder, in 1952, according to the book.
Losses Mount
Ranbaxy on April 24 forecast a net loss of 8 billion rupees this year, compared with a deficit of 9.5 billion rupees in 2008. Thats wider than analysts expectations of 3 billion rupees, based on the median of four estimates compiled by Bloomberg in the past four weeks.
Its first-quarter sales in the U.S., the worlds largest drug market, dropped 14 percent after regulators there barred imports of some of its medicines made in India. The U.S. FDA on Sept. 16 blocked the import of more than 30 generic medicines made in two factories by Ranbaxy because of deficiencies in production processes.
Swine Flu Is Spreading More Widely Than Official Numbers Show
One in 20 cases is being officially reported in the U.S., meaning more than 100,000 people have probably been infected nationwide with the new H1N1 flu strain, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the U.K., the virus may be 300 times more widespread than health authorities have said, the Independent on Sunday reported yesterday.
Japan, which has reported the most cases in Asia, began reopening schools at the weekend after health officials said serious medical complications had not emerged in those infected. The virus is now spreading in the community in Australia, Jim Bishop, the nations chief medical officer, said yesterday.
“I think we will see the number rise,” Bishop told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio today after confirming the nations 17th case and saying test results are pending on 41 others. “This is going to be a marathon rather than a sprint.”
Forty-three countries have confirmed 12,022 cases, including 86 deaths, according to the World Health Organizations latest tally. Almost four of every five cases were in Mexico and the U.S., where the pig-derived strain was discovered last month. Most of those infected experience an illness similar to that of seasonal flu. The main difference is that the new H1N1 strain is persisting outside the Northern Hemisphere winter.
Summer Disease?
“While we are seeing activities decline in some areas, we should expect to see more cases, more hospitalizations and perhaps more deaths over the weeks ahead and possibly into the summer,” Anne Schuchat, CDCs interim deputy director for science and public health program, told reporters on a May 22 conference call.
The U.S. has officially reported 6,552 probable and confirmed cases, Schuchat said. “These are just the tip of the iceberg. We are estimating more than 100,000 people probably have this virus now in the U.S.”
There have been nine deaths and more than 300 known hospitalizations, she said. The fatalities exclude a woman in her 50s who died in New York over the weekend.
Eighteen European countries have confirmed 349 cases, a third of whom were probably infected in their home country, the Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said in a report yesterday. The U.K. and Spain have the most reported cases, with 133 each. About 60 percent of cases in the U.K. are linked to “in-country transmission,” ECDC said.
Thousands of U.K. Cases
Thousands of people have caught the virus in the U.K. and suffered mild symptoms, or none at all, over the past weeks, John Oxford, professor of virology at the University of London, told the Independent.
“For the first time in history, we are watching the conditions conducive for the start of a pandemic unfold before our eyes,” WHO Director-General Margaret Chan told the closing session of the United Nations agencys annual meeting on May 22. “Scientists, clinicians and epidemiologists are capturing abundant signals. But we do not have the scientific knowledge to interpret these signals with certainty.”
The Geneva-based agency is asking vaccine makers to prepare for large-scale production of an inoculation for swine flu, while also ensuring adequate supplies of a shot for seasonal flu, which kills an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 people worldwide each year.
Grossly Obese
“Overseas experience with this virus is that most cases have a mild illness, with those at risk of poor outcomes and death being pregnant women, some children and young adults, those with prior respiratory illness, asthma, diabetes and the grossly obese,” Australias Bishop said yesterday in a letter to doctors. “I would urge you to consider the possibility of influenza complications in your patients this season.”
South Korea confirmed 12 more cases of swine flu, bringing the total to 22, the nations health ministry said today. Chinas Ministry of Health said today a 46-year-old man who flew to Beijing from Canada on May 21 is the nations ninth case.
Chiles tally reached 74 after 19 cases were recorded yesterday, while Argentinas total increased by three to five.
Aids Spreads to Infants as Most Mothers Fail to Get Treatments
Only 33 percent of pregnant women with HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, receive antivirals, a strategy proven 15 years ago to block mother-to-child transmission of the disease, said a report released today from the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition. The group blamed governments and global health groups for poor coordination, funding gaps and valuing “wealthy women over poor,” said Stephen Lewis, founder of AIDS-Free World and co- author of the reports preface.
Approximately 33 million people in the world have HIV/AIDS and 2.7 million people a year become infected, according to the United Nations. In the most hard-hit countries, AIDS has shortened life expectancy by 20 years, plunged households into poverty and left behind 12 million orphans, the UN said.
“Donors talk the talk, but dont walk the walk,” said coalition leader Gregg Gonsalves in an e-mail. “For millions of women, maternal and child health is about HIV/AIDS and we have failed them.”
A top AIDS official at the UN, a target of criticism in the report, agreed with many of its findings.
“There has been some progress,” said Michel Sidibe, executive director of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, in an e-mail. “Overall coverage is still very low for this proven, inexpensive and effective intervention.”
Least Expensive Treatment
Most women with access to prevention get the cheapest possible regimen for themselves and their babies — a single pill of the Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH drug nevirapine, according to the report. Nevirapine cuts transmission to babies by 40 percent and may also spark the rise of drug-resistant strains of the AIDS virus, the report said. Boehringer provides the drug free for mother-to-child prevention in developing countries, and sells the drug for as little as 60 cents a day to treat those in poor nations who already have the disease, according to the German companys Web site.
Triple-drug combination therapy that is more effective and less likely to cause drug resistance costs less than $100 a year per patient, Gonsalves said. About 8 percent of women in developing countries now get it.
Lacking Preventive Drugs
In Uganda, for example, more than 700,000 women are living with HIV, and there may be 27,300 babies born with HIV in 2009 for want of the preventive drugs, the report said.
Affluent countries such as the U.S. commonly provide antiviral drugs to HIV-positive women and their babies around the time of labor and delivery. The practice has slashed HIV infection rates in newborns by more than 90 percent, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The current treatment rate of 33 percent of infected pregnant women is a step toward better care, said Nicholas Hellmann, executive vice president for medical and scientific affairs at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. The organization runs prevention programs in Africa, India and China using funds drawn largely from the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
“I like to look at the glass as one-third full,” Hellmann said in an interview. “We feel its best to get women and infants on some regimen, with the intent to scale up to triple drug combination.”
More Services
Hellmann said comprehensive care is needed to reduce the rates of HIV infection in pregnant women and their children.
“Prevention is more than the dose of a drug,” he said.
UNAIDS, the World Health Organization and 20 international partners will convene this week in Nairobi, Kenya, to launch the “Preventing Mother-to-Child Transmission Push” to improve the situation, Sidibe said.
“We agree with the report that the combination of stigma, fragmented health services, inadequate knowledge within the community and insufficient political leadership are root causes of low coverage,” Sidibe said in an e-mail.
Japan Plays Down Swine Flu Threat as Tokyo Attests Third Case
The governments swine flu taskforce eased policies on quarantine and flight inspections and downplayed the severity of the virus in new guidelines issued today. The measures will end mandatory on-board health checks of people on flights from the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Tokyos government last night confirmed its third case of swine flu, a 36-year-old woman who returned from a trip to the U.S. on May 19. Shops and hotels are losing customers as people stay home to avoid the virus. Japan had 283 cases of swine flu as of yesterday, the majority in and around Osaka, 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Tokyo. No deaths from the virus have been reported in Japan.
“This virus should be considered more like a seasonal flu than a more deadly disease such as Avian flu or SARS,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said today at a press conference, referring to severe acute respiratory syndrome. “People should remain cautious but calm.”
The relaxation of official guidelines comes as schools shut, businesses cancel meetings and hundreds of thousands of people cancel trips.
Losses
As many as 362,200 people canceled visits to western Japan, the Japan Ryokan Association said in a faxed statement dated yesterday. The cancellations to Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, and other western Japan destinations cost the tourism industry about 4.3 billion yen ($46 million), the hotel groups statement said.
JTB Corp., Japans largest travel agent, had 70 schools in the Tokyo area postpone trips to western Japan in the four days to May 20, according to spokesman Kazuhiko Sekiguchi.
Doshisha University closed its four campuses in Kyoto. A note posted at the entrance said the school will be shut from today until May 27. Doshisha has about 25,000 students, according to its Web site.
The outbreak forced shops to close in western Japan, including all 175 boutiques and restaurants at the Santica underground shopping mall in central Kobe. Sales fell by 50 percent, according to the malls general manager Kouji Kitamura.
“The damage done by swine flu is worse than the Lehman Shock,” Kitamura said today, referring to the global recession triggered by the implosion of Wall Street banks. “Were so scared since we dont know how long this will last.”
Inconvenience
“Its true that the new flu is causing inconvenience” in western Japan, Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Kaoru Yosano said in Tokyo today. “We have to make efforts to minimize the impact on daily lives and the economy.”
The outbreak is providing marketing opportunities for shops and supermarkets in Tokyo offering food delivery for people who dont want to leave their homes, according to Japanese media reports. At a Bunkado supermarket in Toyosu, east Tokyo, staff placed signs reading “Stock Up Now!” under tins of tuna and pots of instant noodles.
In the latest reported infection in Tokyo, the woman developed a high temperature and was confirmed as having the H1N1 virus yesterday, the Tokyo Metropolitan government said in a statement. The case follows two high school students who contracted the virus after a trip to New York.
The number of confirmed swine flu cases globally totaled 11,034 in 41 countries. A total of 85 people have been killed by the virus, according to the World Health Organizations latest tally.
Johnson & Johnson Seeks Cancer Medicines In Cougar Acquisition
J&J will initiate a tender offer of $43 a share for Cougar, a 16 percent premium on yesterdays closing price of $36.98 for the company, New Brunswick, New Jersey-based J&J and Cougar said yesterday in a statement.
Los Angeles-based Cougar, founded in 2003, has been viewed by investors and analysts such as Simos Simeonidis with Rodman & Renshaw in New York, as one of the most likely takeover targets for major pharmaceutical companies seeking new products in the $78 billion market for cancer drugs. Cougar is conducting late- stage trials on a prostate cancer therapy, called abiraterone acetate, which would be its first marketed treatment.
“I think it makes a lot of sense for Cougar,” Simeonidis said in a telephone interview. “It makes sense for J&J because they want to increase their footprint in oncology.”
The offer of about $1 billion was “a couple hundred million” less than Simeonidis said he had been expecting for Cougar. “I wouldnt be surprised if there was another offer for Cougar, given the low premium. Somebody could always bid it up,” he said.
Cougar rose as high as $42.70 in Nasdaq Stock Market extended trading after the deal was announced. J&J fell 88 cents, or 1.6 percent, to close at 4 p.m. yesterday at $54.99 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Earnings Effect
J&J said the deal would reduce its 2009 earnings 2 cents to 3 cents a share. The transaction, which has been approved by both companies boards, is expected to be completed in the third quarter, J&J and Cougar said.
Cougars prostate cancer drug is a pill that works by stopping tumor cells from making a hormone they need to survive and reproduce. Prior studies showed the medicine shrank tumors and prolonged life for men with advanced prostate cancer who were no longer responding to other medicines. The drug so far has shown negligible side effects.
Cougar has been vying with San Francisco-based Medivation Inc. to get a prostate cancer drug to market. Both companies are presenting key data at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting, which begins May 29 in Orlando, Florida.
Cougar also is conducing early-stage trials for drugs to treat prostate and breast cancer, as well as hematological malignancies.
Expand Cancer Products
J&Js oncology medicines include Doxil, a treatment for ovarian cancer and the AIDS-related cancer Kaposis syndrome, and Velcade for multiple myeloma, which the company sells outside the U.S. in an agreement with Japans Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.
Cougar Chief Executive Officer Alan Auerbach said in a statement the transaction “strongly positions” the companys lead prostate cancer treatment “with a leading health-care company that has the expertise, resources, dedication and motivation to deliver it to the cancer patients who need it.”
Auerbach was unavailable for further comment, said Andreas Marathis, a spokesman for Cougar with Russo Partners LLC in New York.
Cougar may have fetched a higher price for the company had it waited until results of late-stage trials for the cancer pill, Simeonidis said. Waiting would have also carried some risk, he said.
“We dont know what that data will look like,” he said. Either “its a blockbuster” or “its nothing.”