Top 5 News Stories 7/16-7/20

1) U.S. News Best Hospitals 2012-13: the Honor Roll

The medical centers in the Best Hospitals Honor Roll are members of an unusually exclusive club, one that makes up less than 0.4 percent of the nearly 5,000 hospitals nationwide that U.S. News evaluated for the 2012-13 rankings. The 17 hospitals on the list, most of them household names, excel across a broad spectrum of patient care, scoring at or near the top this year in at least six of the 16 Best Hospitals medical specialties.

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2) Vertex celebrates topping off of Innovation District tower

Developer Joseph Fallon, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and a crowd of construction workers watched Thursday as the final beam for the first of two Vertex Pharmaceuticals office towers on Fan Pier was hoisted to the top of the 18-story building on Thursday. Work on the 1.1 million square foot global headquarters for Vertex is expected to be completed late next year.

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3) Alnylam’s hereditary disease treatment shows promise, shares soar

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc’s stock soared more than 50 percent after the company reported that its experimental drug to treat an organ-damaging hereditary disorder showed promise in an early-stage trial by suppressing the protein that causes the disease. The drug aims to treat transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis (ATTR), a disease caused by mutations in the transthyretin (TTR) gene.

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4) Sanofi launches diabetes partnership with Brigham

French drug maker Sanofi has entered into a research agreement with Brigham and Women’s Hospital to study the immunology of Type 1 diabetes, focusing on a target that has shown promise in animal studies. Researchers from both organizations will try to identify potential drug candidates on the basis of that target, and Sanofi has an option to exclusively license intellectual property emerging from this collaboration. Financial details were not disclosed.

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5) AstraZeneca May Advance at Least 8 Drugs to Final Tests by 2015

AstraZeneca Plc aims to advance at least eight medicines into late-stage tests within three years, one of its top research and development executives said today. “We’ve set our R&D organization a goal of delivering eight to 11 Phase 3 projects,” Menelas N. Pangalos, executive vice president of the company’s Innovative Medicine Research Units, told reporters at a briefing in London.

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