Chad

Fresenius Medical Care has agreed to pay $231m to resolve reports of overseas bribery. The US Department of Justice says the dialysis giant paid bribes to health and government officials in Angola and Saudi Arabia, and failed to keep accurate financial records in Angola, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Spain, Turkey, and several countries in West Africa.

Stock price gains for AstraZeneca, Amgen, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Portola Pharmaceuticals and Esperion Therapeutics showed that there were no biopharma losers based on data presented during the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Scientific Session & Expo despite unanswered questions about therapies in development.

Regado Biosciences's stock price plunged 60.2% to $1.13 per share on 25 August after the company announced a permanent stop to its Phase III REGULATE-PCI clinical trial for Revolixys (REG1), a factor IXa inhibitor combined with the anticoagulant's active control agent.

Cytokinetics lost $303m worth of market value on 25 April after the company reported that its drug tirasemtiv caused a greater numerical loss of function for individuals with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) than placebo in the 711-patient Phase IIb BENEFIT-ALS clinical trial.

Medivation, Clovis Oncology and Arena Pharmaceuticals waited until the end of earnings season to provide fourth quarter financial updates and they took a beating on 28 February, which was a tough day for US biotechnology stocks.

ArQule cut 25 jobs, trimming its head count by 27.2% and bringing total employment down to 67 people so that the Woburn, Massachusetts-based company can extend the life of its $111.1 million in cash and investments.

Aastrom Biosciences had a strategic review under way before Nick Colangelo joined the company as president and CEO in early March, but it was on his watch that Aastrom announced its decision to end the Phase III REVIVE clinical trial for its cell therapy ixmyelocel-T in critical limb ischemia (CLI) and focus on a smaller, faster Phase IIb ixCELL-DCM trial in dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM).

Drug makers paying out millions of dollars to resolve state and federal civil and criminal charges stemming from accusations from insider whistleblowers has become an almost routine occurrence in the US, with two more such cases settled with the Department of Justice (DOJ) in the past week – one even involving allegations of illegal kickbacks paid to a physician in the form of strip club "lap dances" for the doctor's employees in exchange for prescribing the company's medicine.

The good news for Geron's investors? Now that the Menlo Park, California-based company has terminated development of GRN1005 and plans to lay off 64 of its 107 employees, it has enough cash on hand to fund its operations for two or three years.

Geron's stock price was cut in half on 10 September when the company said it would abandon development of its lead drug candidate in the treatment of solid tumours, because imetelstat failed in a Phase II clinical trial to improve progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with metastatic HER2-negative breast cancer.