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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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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