General Motors Company, or GM, has announced that it will offer a liquefied petroleum gas option for the 2012 Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana cutaway 3500 and 4500 vans. This new offering enables businesses to choose from 2,604 LPG fueling stations across US. (more…)

Five companies account for approximately 80% of total global vaccine sales: Sanofi Pasteur, Merck & Co., GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, and Novartis. The key reason for this oligopoly is the high barrier to entry for smaller players, which usually have limited manufacturing capacity, and may also lack the resources and the distribution networks required for vaccine development. (more…)

Volkswagen of America, Inc., a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, has reported sales of 20,189 units in November 2010, an increase of 24.2%, compared to 16,25 units in November 2009. (more…)

Harley-Davidson, Inc., a US-based motorcycle manufacturer, has reported a net income of $88.83 million, or $0.40 per diluted share, for the third quarter ended September 26, 2010, compared to $26.48 million, or $0.24 per diluted share, for the third quarter ended September 27, 2009. (more…)

Toyota Motor and its subsidiaries, Daihatsu Motor and Hino Motors, have announced that their worldwide vehicle production in July 2010 increased 10.7% to 714,426 units, compared to July 2009.
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BMW is to use carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic to manufacture the body of its forthcoming Megacity electric car. The material is expected to reduce the car’s weight by 250-350kg, thereby significantly increasing its driving range, which was previously a major resistor to the uptake of electric/hybrid cars. This should lead to a rise in adoption rates, especially in the luxury segment.
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Toyota Motor Sales USA has reported that it will launch a voluntary safety recall on approximately 3,800 Lexus late 2009 and certain 2010 model year LS 460 and LS 600h L vehicles in the US equipped with variable gear ratio steering to address a temporary steering wheel off-center condition that may develop under a specific driving maneuver. No other Toyota, Lexus, or Scion vehicles are involved in this recall.

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MDRNA, a drug discovery and development company, has announced a study effort with Pfizer. The relationship will focus on the evaluation of MDRNA’s proprietary di-alkylated amino acids, or DiLA2, platform and UsiRNA constructs for RNA interference. Additional details of the collaboration were not disclosed.
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Amazon.com, an online retailer, has announced that its Kindle App for iPad is now available in the App Store.

According to the company, the application lets users to select from more than 450,000 books from the Kindle Store on iPad and features Amazon Whispersync technology that saves and synchronizes customers’ last page read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights across their Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, iPad, and more.
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New Datamonitor research has revealed that pharmaceutical companies will struggle to profit from the cardiovascular disease market over the next decade, despite growing drug usage. Patent expiries and generic competition will have a major impact and Datamonitor expects only AstraZeneca and Novo Nordisk to generate positive sales growth in this sector out to 2018.
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