drug research

Unlike generics, which are the exact chemical copies of a brand-name drug, biosimilars have large and often complex proteins that are made in living cells, and tiny differences can play havoc with the product. It may take years for the FDA to create an approval process.

Alzheimer's has been a tough area for medical research, resulting in little help to date for the millions of sufferers. But a new database of patient information from failed trials, built by competing drugmakers, may yield clues to a treatment breakthrough.

News that could affect stock prices today: Pfizer and India's Strides Arcolab reached an agreement that will expand the off-patent generic drugs in the U.S. drug maker's portfolio; Kraft's hostile takeover bid for Cadbury received conditional antitrust approval by the European Union.

Stories about clinical drug trials pop up regularly in the news. Sometimes, that news is good because a novel drug proves itself to be a promising improvement over existing treatments, or even better when it represents a breakthrough against a previously untreatable disease. Of course, drug trials...