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Roche announced that a total of 15 abstracts involving its investigational rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treatment ACTEMRA(R) (tocilizumab) have been accepted for presentation at the 2008 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Annual Scientific Meeting, which will take place October 24-29 in San Francisco. These studies evaluate ACTEMRA, a novel treatment targeting interleukin-6 (IL-6) receptors, in patients with moderately to severely active RA.

Pfizer Inc announced today that it has reached agreements in principle to resolve substantially all of the personal injury cases, consumer fraud cases and state attorneys general claims involving its non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) pain medication Bextra, which Pfizer voluntarily withdrew from the U.S. market in 2005.

Already a major therapeutic disease sector accounting for drug sales in excess of $18 billion worldwide, the incidence of autoimmune disease in developed countries is increasing. The impact of autoimmunity on patient quality-of-life is well known, but it has only been in the last ten years with the introduction of biological drugs capable of modulating the immune cascade that effective therapies for this most intractable family of diseases have become available.