While You Were Watching Winter Sports ...

flickr user Stefan introduces the Imperial curling team

We do enjoy the Winter Olympics, if only because we only get to watch fun sports like curling and Nordic Combined about, oh, once every four years. It's brilliant competition, except, well, when it isn't.

Canada's women's ice hockey team beat up on Slovakia 18-0 on Saturday, which isn't much of a game. Nor did we think it was particularly sporting of the canucks, until we remembered that Slovakia was the team that destroyed Bulgaria 82-0 in an Olympic qualifying match. Fair play, Canada.

While you were couch-luging ...

• AstraZeneca has shelled out $100 million up-front for a global license to Rigel's Phase II oral RA treatment fostamatinib, the furthest along Syk-inhibitor in the industry pipeline. The billion dollars in biobucks that may eventually follow are heavily weighted toward sales milestones, but the deal is still an expensive one for AZ, perhaps a reflection of the company's acute need to bring in late-stage pipeline projects.
  
• NICE to Novo: Victoza use should be limited on NHS's dime, er, ten-pence.


• Bloomberg reports on how Affymax could eat into Amgen's anemia franchise. It's all about pricing.


• Merck appointed ex-J&J Baby Global Business Unit chief Bridgette Heller as EVP and president of consumer health care.


• What's that awful smell? It's metformin, reports Reuters. The diabetes drug literally 'stinks' and in a letter to the Annals of Internal Medicine some doctors suggest this may be why patient compliance with treatment is low.


• The New York Times unpacks GSK, Sanofi, and others' push into global branded generics.


• We're all for properly handled generic substitution, but come on, Vancouver Olympics organizers, don't send a generic ice resurfacer to do a Zamboni's job.