Pharmaceutical giants Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham finally completed their £114 billion merger at the end of last year, becoming GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) on 27 December. The deal, which took 11 months to complete, means that GSK is now the world's largest drugs company and the third biggest corporation in the UK.
Shares in Scotland-based biotech firm Axis-Shield rose 42.5 pence following the announcement of a new genetic test for osteoporosis, the brittle bone disease. The test identifies alterations in a gene called COL1A1, which makes a protein involved in bone formation. Researchers at Axis-Shield say that around five per cent of the population have two copies of a version of the gene that puts them at higher risk of the illness.
Finally, a young medical-school drop-out is set to take the biotech world by storm next month, when he unveils a new technique for rapidly analysing genetic information. According to the Independent on Sunday newspaper, 25-year-old Daniel Densham's company, Mobious, is already worth £50 million. The new technology invented by Densham is claimed to be 200 times faster than existing methods for analysing gene sequences, although the exact details are still shrouded in secrecy.
Sources and References
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Giant drug group debuts at £114bn
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Glaxo's bitter pill
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Axis lifted by brittle-bone test
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Young gene 'genius' finds key to DNA
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