Despite reporting a slight increase in overall sales for November, McDonald’s financial results also showed some declines in key markets. The company’s US sales fell for the third consecutive month, while sales in China also suffered a slump after previously robust growth. McDonald’s will need to act quickly in order to ensure that these downwards trends do not become established.

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Eli Lilly and Company has announced the availability of a smaller insulin vial containing 3ml of insulin, for people with diabetes being treated in a hospital, in the US.
The new smaller vial - for the comapny’s Humalog and Humulin R-U100 - is intended to provide hospitals more flexibility when evaluating insulin storage, delivery and distribution options.

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German auto major Volkswagen intends to hire around 1,300 workers by the end of 2010 at its Chakan manufacturing facility near Pune, India, reported Bloomberg.
The manufacturing plant, established with an investment of around $860 million, reportedly employs 1,200 workers.
According to the news source, the Chakan plant had begun production of Skoda Fabia hatchback in May 2009 and will commence production of Volkswagen Polo supermini car in the near future.

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Bayer Schering Pharma has announced the enrollment of first patients in an international clinical Phase III trial to evaluate the efficacy and safety of florbetaben PET imaging in the detection of beta-amyloid deposition in the brain.
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Results from two Phase III studies presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress 2009 show statistically significant benefits via the addition of Vectibix to both first- and second-line chemotherapy for wild-type KRAS metastatic colorectal cancer. These positive data could help Vectibix to overcome Erbitux’s first-to-market status and usurp its current position.

The Phase III PRIME study investigated first-line FOLFOX4 (5-fluorouracil, leucovorin and oxaliplatin) with or without Vectibix (panitumumab; Amgen) in 1,183 metastatic colorectal cancer patients The addition of Vectibix to standard chemotherapy resulted in a statistically significant increase in progression-free survival of 9.6 months in wild-type KRAS patients, versus 8.0 months for chemotherapy alone (p=0.0234).

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US biotech Novavax has initiated a pivotal two-stage study for its H1N1 influenza vaccine in Mexico. Novavax’s strategy of pursuing approval for the vaccine in smaller markets before targeting the US represents an alternative and faster route to market. Given the many benefits of this strategy, Datamonitor believes that it may be adopted by other small vaccine companies in the future.
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Harley-Davidson is planning to divest its Italy-based MV Agusta unit and also discontinue the Buell motorcycles product line, as part of its go-forward business strategy to drive growth through a single-minded focus on the strengths of the Harley-Davidson brand.
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Global Research & Data Services has published 5 new registers concerning the medical device distributors in Russia, Finland, China, Germany and Sweden. Beside the company names this registers gives information about the products the different companies are distributing. Also it provides you with contact information as well as information concerning the contact person.
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The Pepsi Bottling Group has reported a net income attributable to the company of $254 million, or $1.14 per diluted share, for the third quarter ended September 5, 2009, compared to $231 million, or $1.06 per diluted share, for the third quarter ended September 6, 2008.
Net revenues for the third quarter of 2009 were $3.63 billion, compared to $3.81 billion in the same period of 2008.
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Qiagen, a Netherlands-based provider of molecular sample and assay technologies, has launched a new influenza A/H1N1 test which enables both the highly sensitive and specific detection of the novel influenza A/H1N1, the virus that causes swine flu, as well as of all other known influenza A and B virus strains.
According to Qiagen, the new artus Influenza/H1 RG/LC RT-PCR Kit provides highly accurate results in approximately 40 minutes. In addition, Qiagen’s new kit can also detect infections with other known influenza A and B strains likely to emerge and disseminate in the population during the upcoming flu season. The rapid turn around time of the company’s new test can result in faster reporting of results which is a key factor in monitoring and controlling outbreaks.
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