The Pharm Exec staff

Shire plans to relocate more than 500 positions to Massachusetts from its Chesterbrook, PA, site and establish Lexington, MA, as the company’s US operational headquarters.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has published its revised policy on handling declarations of interests for scientific-committee members and experts.

The pharmaceutical market is beginning to show signs of stability, with a review of 30 leading companies highlighting combined revenues of $718.7 billion in 2013, down just 0.2% from 2012, according to GlobalData.

Actavis’s agreed purchase of Allergan for around $66 billion will help grow the Dublin-based specialty pharma firm to a $22 billion healthcare company in 2015 - a “dramatic elevation”, given the $8.7 billion revenues it recorded in 2013, reports research and consulting firm GlobalData.

In response to a letter the European Medicines Agency received from the European Ombudsman on Oct. 27, 2014, the agency is clarifying its policy on commercially confidential information.

Johnson & Johnson completed the acquisition of Alios BioPharma, a privately held clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing therapies for viral diseases, for a total purchase price of approximately $1.75 billion in cash.