Most popular news headlines for Friday, August 8 2014

The most-clicked news item for Friday was “Pfizer confronts surge of lawsuits over Lipitor.”  Over the last 5 months, there has been a surge of lawsuits by US women claiming that Pfizer’s statin drug Lipitor has caused their type-2 diabetes.  Pfizer’s official position is that they are not liable, and will fight all lawsuits.

The second most popular link was “Ebola Drug Firm Shares Go Bonkers After FDA Announcement.”  This article continues the coverage from earlier in the week of Tekmira’s TKM-Ebola.  The FDA has modified a previous hold on clinical trials of the drug to allow for trials of infected patients.  As a result, Tekmira’s stock soared 45% in Friday’s trading.

The third most popular news item Friday was “California judge sets Aug. 20 hearing in Allergan vs Valeant case,” which details the hearing set for August 20th which will determine the fast-track schedule for Allergan’s insider trading lawsuit against Valeant and Bill Ackman.  This is just the latest in the continuing saga of Valeant’s not-yet-successful hostile bid for Allergan.

A CNBC article, “GSK-linked investigator found guilty in China trial,” was the fourth most-clicked item on Friday.  A UK investigator linked to GSK and his wife were convicted of illegally obtaining personal information on Chinese nationals.  The trial has not been official linked to GSK.  However, the couple had been hired by GSK before its China bribery scandal and were investigating potential whistleblowing sources of the scandal.