Building on the 10-pharma clinical development problem-solving initiative launched in September, J&J, Merck and Lilly are spearheading a databank that will share information on clinical trial sites and investigators, with a primary goal of avoiding redundancy in paperwork and training.

MannKind stands to gain up to $140 million in upfront and milestone payments plus royalties under a license agreement with Colby Pharmaceutical, which will take over development of novel MKC1106 immunotherapies, allowing MannKind to move another oncology asset forward while remaining focused on Phase III development of its inhaled diabetes drug Affrezza.

The prospects of a "universal" flu vaccine becoming a pharmaceutical reality have received a boost with positive results from the first Phase II trial of an investigational product from the Israeli biotech company BiondVax Pharmaceuticals.

One year on since the start of the swine flu outbreak, the cracks in our pandemic preparation strategy have become apparent. One solution, suggests Novartis's vice-president of influenza strategy Dr Klaus Stöhr, is pre-pandemic vaccination programmes.