Microsoft’s $19.7B Nuance buy hits a snag
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Today's Rundown

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Pfizer, ex-employee reach a deal in COVID-19 vaccine trade secrets case

In a trade secrets case, Pfizer sought an order to prevent a "soon-to-be-former employee" Chun Xiao Li from causing any further harm by transferring, disclosing, destroying or altering any company info in her possession. Now, Li has agreed to those terms, according to a filing.

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Microsoft’s $19.7B Nuance buy hits a snag with EU antitrust probe

Several months after the U.S. Department of Justice signed off on Microsoft’s plan to acquire AI developer Nuance, its watchdog counterpart across the pond is taking a closer look at the proposed buyout.

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Jury: UnitedHealth must pay TeamHealth $60M in damages in Nevada case

A Nevada jury has awarded TeamHealth $60 million in punitive damages as part of an ongoing legal spat between the physician staffing firm and health insurance giant UnitedHealthcare.

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As end of New York opioid trial nears, AbbVie's Allergan ponies up $200M to settle its part of the case

Alongside a $200 million settlement, Allergan and all its "subsidiaries, predecessors, and successors" are barred from selling opioids in New York. The deal acknowledges Allergan's prior exit from the opioid business, New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a release.

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MIT assistant professor alleges Sabatini 'coerced' her into sex, led 'highly sexualized lab'

In a counterclaim filing against MIT professor David Sabatini, his former mentee and Whitehead Institute colleague alleges he "coerced" her into sex and led a "highly sexualized" lab. She claimed his October filing, in which he alleged he was the victim, was a "frivolous lawsuit" riddled with conspiracies.

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Pfizer, BioNTech say omicron partially evades its COVID vaccine but booster can restore protection

Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine, Comirnaty, provides less protection against the omicron variant than it did against wild-type COVID and other variants, the companies said, adding that a booster shot is needed to gain protection against omicron comparable to that provided by the two-dose series against wild-type and other variants.

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'Day job and a gay job': LGBTQ+ leaders in biopharma want those who look, talk and love like them to be seen and counted

Organizations for LGBTQ+ biopharma employees are popping up in Boston, San Francisco, New York, New Jersey, Dublin and elsewhere. Companies are also working to build up their internal networks as LGBTQ+ employees want to see those who look, talk and love like them.

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Nomic collects $17M to advance its automated, high-throughput ELISA platform

A Canadian startup aims to give the decades-old, hand-performed ELISA test a 21st century upgrade by transforming the humble immunoassay into a high-throughput protein profiling platform. Formerly known as nplex biosciences, Nomic said it has worked with a small number of biopharma partners since its debut in 2018 and is looking to expand.

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Shkreli's former company Vyera settles for $40M in antitrust case, but 'pharma bro' still faces his own trial

Vyera Pharmaceuticals has agreed to pay up to $40 million to settle charges that it engaged in anticompetitive practices to ward off generics and maintain “monopoly profits” from its more than 4,000% overnight price hike on the toxoplasmosis med Daraprim.

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Voice-based clinical assistant Suki picks up $55M to fuel tech development, expand health system partnerships

The Redwood City, CA startup has been making strides in this growing market since 2017, tapping staff who’ve worked at Apple, Google, Adobe and IBM Watson to advance technology designed to help healthcare organizations with such administrative tasks as physician dictation and records retrieval.

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Merck KGaA steps up VC activity with $677M investment, positioning M Ventures to keep pace with changing landscape

Merck KGaA is upping its commitment to corporate venture capital with a 600 million euro ($677 million) investment, positioning its VC arm M Ventures to up the number and size of its bets over the next five years.

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Dendreon ups its Provenge marketing game with help from NBA all-star Grant Hill

It’s been over a decade since Dendreon’s prostate cancer immunotherapy, Provenge, won FDA approval. Now, after a lackluster launch, a bankruptcy and multiple ownership changes, the biopharma is upping its marketing game—enlisting an NBA all-star as its first-ever celebrity spokesman.

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House passes bill that delays 6% in Medicare cuts, postpones radiation oncology model

The House passed legislation to delay 6% in cuts to Medicare payments that are expected to take effect next year and delays for a year the start of an oncology model.

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Israeli startup debuts no-touch, AI-powered device to track glaucoma-related eye pressure

Ophthalmic Sciences' testing system is housed in a headset similar to those used for virtual reality applications.

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