While You Were Running With The Bulls

Again. Excuse the WYW rerun but there are too many crazy pictures to ignore the annual San Fermin Festival in Pamplona.

• Speaking of getting gouged by animals: The New York Times Magazine cover story this week is about the new world of behavioral pharmacology ... for pets. The market for doggy drugs is nothing to bark at; Pfizer's companion animal division raked in almost $1 billion last year.


• In Philadelphia, says the Inqy, competition among hospitals and specialist centers for cancer patients and a difficulty expanding locally means that Fox Chase Cancer Center has been forced to opt for Plan B: building a second campus further afield in Delaware.


• The SF Chronicle profiles BioMarin Pharmaceuticals, the 11-year old orphan disease specialist, and notes its potential as a takeover target as drug marketers that previously ignored rare diseases begin to see the pharmacoeconomic light.


• Neurogen's Phase II/III insomnia hopeful adipiplon has hit a snag. Neurogen halted a pivotal study of the drug after next-day effects of the drug were worse than expected. The company has laid the blame on the drug candidate's bi-layer tablet formation. (BREAKING: Actelion's own insomnia candidate almorexant is doing a wee bit better.)


• In Houston, Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, heart surgeon and inventor extraordinaire, died Friday night, less than two months short of his 100th birthday. The NYT's obit is here. DeBakey had a hand in creating, developing or pioneering countless surgical procedures and devices including the heart-lung machine that made cardiac surgery possible and the Debakey Ventricular Assist Device. He also had a role in developing the first Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals that helped save the lives of so many soldiers as well as inspire one of the finer TV shows in history.

AP photo by Alvaro Barrientos