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Today's Globe: cancer as top killer, biotech plea, Merck generic biologics, Norman Krinsky

E-mail | Print | Comments () Posted by Elizabeth Cooney December 10, 2008 06:50 AM

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Cancer will overtake heart disease as the world's top killer by 2010, part of a trend that should more than double global cancer cases and deaths by 2030, international health specialists said in a report released yesterday.

Biotechnology industry executives plan to visit Congress today to ask for a temporary change in the tax law that would let money-losing companies get cash from the government now, in exchange for tax credits they would pledge not to take if they eventually become profitable.

Merck & Co. will start a new unit to copy biotechnology medicines, becoming the first big US maker of conventional drugs to leap into the $94 billion market for treatments based on living cells.

Norman I. Krinsky, a pioneering researcher into the nature of carotenoids, natural pigments that help prevent certain types of cancer and other illnesses, died at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center on Nov. 28 due to complications of leukemia. He was 80.

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White Coat Notes covers the latest from the health care industry, hospitals, doctors offices, labs, insurers, and the corridors of government. Chelsea Conaboy previously covered health care for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Write her at cconaboy@boston.com. Follow her on Twitter: @cconaboy.

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