Sanofi completes €1.5B bond sale; BBC: Tumor caused vaccine recipient's death;

Sanofi-Aventis said it successfully completed the placement of €1.5 billion of five-year and 10-year euro-denominated notes. Report

A 14-year-old U.K. girl who died after receiving GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix vaccine had a malignant tumor of the chest that led to her death, the BBC said. Report

UCB raised €450 million ($659.9 million) from a six-year convertible bond offer on Wednesday to refinance debt, a figure that could rise to €500 million. Report

Japan plans to spend 138.5 billion yen ($1.5 billion) to buy swine flu vaccines for as many as 77 million people by March 31, health ministry officials said. Report

Mylan Pharmaceuticals got the FDA nod for its Carbidopa and Levodopa tablets, generic versions of Bristol-Myers Squibb's Parkinson's treatment Sinemet. Report

Hovione's API plant in Loures, Portugal has just successfully passed a pre-approval inspection by FDA. Report

India's Glenmark Pharmaceuticals said its subsidiary Glenmark Generics has filed a draft prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Board of India for an initial public offering. Report

Canadian drugmaker Labopharm's painkiller Ryzolt faces more competition now that India's Sun Pharma Global plans to manufacture generic versions of the drug. Report

Sinovac Biotech said the Chinese government purchased 3 million more doses of its Panflu.1 swine flu vaccine, bringing the total order to 6.3 million doses. Report

Biotech News

The IPO exit strategy is back--sort of. Talecris Biotherapeutics successfully raised $950 million in its IPO yesterday, and two of its biggest investors--Cerberus Capital Management and Ampersand Ventures--cashed in 15.8 million shares for $300 million. Report

Armed with a plan to invest $100 million in the next year in the life sciences and technology, the newly-formed Google Ventures has made its first biotech investment, leading a Series D for the antibody start-up Adimab. And Managing Partner William Maris has joined the Lebanon, NH-based Adimab board. Report

A handful of IPO announcements has spurred some real enthusiasm in the biotech field, but an important bellwether of financial activity indicates we're a long way from recovery. A separate report out today concludes that the overall M&A market is being driven by companies in desperate need of a deal. Report

Vaccine News

The National Institute on Drug Abuse has given Nabi Biopharmaceuticals a $10 million loan to help fund the company's first pivotal clinical trial of NicVAX, a smoking cessation vaccine. It's the largest grant the NIDA has ever handed out, and the third Nabi has received. Report

Anyone doubting just how hot H1N1 news is right now should check out Vical's stock price this morning. The developer announced a modest $1.3 million contract with the Navy to fund the manufacturing and testing of its swine flu vaccine and the company's stock shot up 22 percent. And this was all laid out in releases weeks ago. Report

Shares of BioCryst were buoyed by the news that the Birmingham, AL-based developer had responded to a request from the Department of Health and Human Services seeking information on how it could go about setting up an emergency stockpile of its experimental flu drug peramivir. Report

And Finally... If you think U.S. health-care spending is out of control today, just wait a decade. Report