Novartis’ vaccines business gets chance to prove itself

ZURICH (Reuters) – The European Medicines Agency has thrown Novartis‘ loss-making vaccines business a lifeline by recommending its meningitis B shot for approval, which means the pressure is on to make the product a commercial success.

Novartis paid $ 5.1 billion to gain full control of U.S. vaccine maker Chiron Corp in 2006 in a major bet on vaccines designed to reduce its dependence on prescription drugs ahead of a wave of patent expiries.

But the division has gobbled up research and development cash with little return, making the European backing for its “MenB” vaccine Bexsero a key event.

“(It) will allow breathing space for management that has been under investor pressure to improve the outlook for the sub-scale vaccines division,” said Deutsche Bank analyst Tim Race.

Chief Executive Joseph Jimenez has stood by the division, saying he still believed it could be a “profitable and important part of the company.” But he has also denied that Novartis is “wed” to any of its units.

Diversifying into vaccines looked a good bet, given they are biological medicines that are less exposed to generic competition. Moreover, the world vaccine market is growing and expected reach $ 40 billion by 2015, according to the Centre for Vaccine Ethics and Policy.

But Novartis’ division has struggled to catch up with market leaders GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi and Merck. It posted a $ 22 million operating loss in the third quarter – the only one of Novartis’ five units to be in the red.

PROBLEM CHILD

“You can say it’s the problem child of Novartis,” said Birgit Kulhoff, a money manager at private bank Rahm & Bodmer in Zurich. “2014 will be the year when they make the ultimate decision about what they’re going to do with the division.”

The European drug agency’s recommendation, which is likely to be formally endorsed early next year, is clearly good news – but it will not automatically translate into sales.

Bexsero’s success hinges on convincing cash-strapped government healthcare systems to add it to their vaccination programs – and that may not be easy, given the fact that MenB disease, while serious, is becoming rarer.

Bernstein analyst Tim Anderson, for example, forecasts 2020 sales of $ 700 million for the vaccine, a far cry from the multi-billion dollar sales potential heralded by some a few years ago.

Novartis’ head of vaccines Andrin Oswald said he was “quite confident” countries which have a high incidence of the disease, like Britain and Ireland, would add Bexsero to their programs, although he downplayed expectations of strong 2013 sales.

“We plan to start selling next year and then we expect the vaccine to start to ramp up nicely over the years,” Andrin Oswald told Reuters in a telephone interview on Friday.

Oswald disputed that there was a deadline hanging over the division, saying the business had come a long way, having already won approval for another meningitis vaccine Menveo and anticipating approval of its cell culture flu vaccine.

“If I look at our pipeline there are other promising products in there. It may take another few more years but I think as long as we deliver and bring good vaccines and innovation to the market we are on the right track.”

Oswald said Novartis was still in discussions with U.S. health regulators, where there was some skepticism about the public health need for a single MenB shot given the low disease incidence at present.

He said Novartis favored a possible combination shot of Bexsero with Menveo. “If the discussions go as we think we may be able to start Phase III (clinical trials) in a reasonable amount of time,” he said.

PROFITABILITY VS GROWTH

Some analysts are skeptical if the division will be able eke out a profit this year after racking up an operating loss of $ 291 million in the first nine months, despite seasonal flu sales.

“The unit barely breaks even on the back of the seasonal flu vaccine only,” said Vontobel analyst Andrew Weiss. “There’s a huge amount of expenses in R&D really in trying to get away from this seasonality and being a rounder business.”

Jefferies analyst Jeffrey Holford says Novartis could create more value if it were to divest the business – which also contains a diagnostics segment – in two separate parts.

A standalone vaccines business could fetch $ 6.3 billion, while disposing of the diagnostics business could bring in a further $ 1.3 billion, he argued in a September research note.

But Oswald said it took time to build up a vaccines business, arguing: “The key priority right now is not to make the business more profitable but to grow it.”

(Editing by Ben Hirschler and Jane Merriman)

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Petraeus says al Qaeda role known early on

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former CIA Director David Petraeus told Congress on Friday that he and the spy agency had sought to make clear from the outset that September's deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, involved an al Qaeda affiliate, lawmakers said.

Petraeus told the House of Representatives intelligence committee that "there were extremists in the group" that launched the initial attack on the diplomatic mission, describing them as affiliates of al Qaeda and other extremist groups, said Representative C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, the committee's top Democrat. "The fact is that he clarified it."

Another lawmaker, Republican Representative Peter King, said Petraeus' account in the closed-door session differed from the assessment that the CIA chief gave to Congress two months ago, just days after the September 11 attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

"He also stated that he thought all along he made it clear that there were significant terrorist involvement, and that is not my recollection of what he told us on September 14," King said.

Petraeus later appeared before the Senate intelligence panel. His appearances before lawmakers came the week after he quit as CIA chief because of an extramarital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. Lawmakers said a somber Petraeus told them his resignation had nothing to do with issues related to Benghazi or any reluctance to testify before Congress.

"The general did not address any specifics of the affair, of that issue," Democratic Representative Jim Langevin said. "What he did say in his opening statement was that he regrets the circumstances that led to his resignation."

Petraeus, a retired Army four-star general, slipped into the closed sessions unseen by a swarm of media.

The assault on the U.S. mission in Benghazi has turned into a flash point between President Barack Obama and Republicans, who accuse the White House of misleading the public in the days following the attack.

Some Republicans have suggested that Obama and his aides wanted to downplay the idea they had failed to prevent a terrorist attack, which might have dampened the president's re-election chances on November 6. Obama has denied that implication.

Petraeus' testimony to the House and Senate intelligence committees seems unlikely to dampen the controversy over why the Obama administration had asserted for days after the Benghazi attack that it had sprung from a spontaneous protest prompted by an anti-Muslim film.

Republicans have targeted Obama's U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice, who in five Sunday talk show appearances on September 16 said the assault was prompted by the video and then morphed into a more violent act. But she told CBS's "Face the Nation" that day that it was "clear that there were extremist elements that joined in and escalated the violence."

Rice aides and White House officials have said that she had based her remarks on talking points provided by the CIA.

'A FRIEND'

Lawmakers appeared to treat the question of his personal life with kid gloves. They said the questioning was sometimes awkward against the backdrop of the Broadwell scandal and because some of them have known Petraeus for years and think highly of his military service in which he ran the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"I consider him a friend, which made the questioning tough, to be honest with you," King told reporters.

"I've known him for nine years now. I actually asked him to run for president a few years ago," he said.

The affair has raised questions about whether any classified information was divulged to Broadwell that would affect national security. So far, FBI investigators have not discovered anything to suggest that was the case, law enforcement sources said.

Before his resignation, Petraeus had gone to Libya to interview people about what happened in Benghazi on September 11, when there was a series of escalating attacks on the diplomatic mission and a nearby CIA annex.

Ruppersberger said the committee learned on Thursday during a closed hearing in which it saw a real-time film of the events in Benghazi that the attack on the diplomatic mission was different than the subsequent attack on the nearby annex.

"The first incident was a lot different than the second incident in the annex," he said. The attack on the mission involved looters and people setting buildings on fire, while the attack on the annex was "well-organized" and involved people who had experience in conducting attacks, he said.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Will Dunham)

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Canada’s Carney says rate hikes “less imminent”

TORONTO (Reuters) – Interest rate hikes have become less imminent than the Bank of Canada once expected, although rates are still likely to rise, central bank Governor Mark Carney said in an interview published on Saturday.

“Over time, rates are likely to increase somewhat, but over time, so a less imminent timing relative to our expectation,” Carney said in an interview with the National Post newspaper.

Canada’s economy rebounded better than most from the global economic recession, and the Bank of Canada is the only central bank in the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations that is currently hinting at higher interest rates.

But Carney has also made clear that there will be no rate rise for a while, despite high domestic borrowing rates that he sees as a major risk to a still fragile economy.

“We’ve been very clear in terms of lines of defense in addressing financial vulnerabilities,” he said in the interview. “And the most prominent one, obviously, in Canada, is household debt.”

He said the bank was monitoring the impact of four successive government moves to tighten mortgage lending, which aimed to take the froth out of a hot housing market without causing a damaging crash in prices.

A Reuters poll published on Friday showed the majority of 20 forecasters believe the government has done enough to rein in runaway prices, preventing the type of crash that devastated the U.S. market.

The experts expect Canadian housing prices to fall 10 percent over the next several years, but they do not expect the recent property boom to end in a U.S.-style collapse.

(Reporting by Janet Guttsman; Editing by Vicki Allen)

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Springsteen, McCartney, Kanye set for Sandy show

NEW YORK (AP) — Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band and Kanye West will hit the stage at a Superstorm Sandy benefit concert next month at Madison Square Garden.

MSG announced Thursday that Billy Joel, The Who, Alicia Keys and Jon Bon Jovi will also perform at the Dec. 12 show, dubbed “12-12-12.” More performers will be announced at a later date.

Proceeds from the concert will go to the Robin Hood Relief Fund to benefit those affected by Sandy in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Sandy’s assault more than two weeks ago created widespread damage and power outages throughout the area.

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AcelRx pain treatment as effective as standard care in trial

(Reuters) – AcelRx Pharmaceuticals Inc said its drug-device combination for post-operative pain was at least as effective as the standard of care, suggesting it has the potential to replace the current treatment.

AcelRx plans to file for marketing approval for the device in the third quarter of 2013, Pamela Palmer, co-founder and chief medical officer of AcelRx said on a conference call with analysts.

The company’s stock jumped 42 percent to a year high of $ 4.55 in heavy volume trade on Thursday, making it the third biggest percentage gainer on the Nasdaq.

AcelRx tested its ARX-01 Sufentanil NanoTab patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) system against intravenous (IV) PCA with morphine on 359 adult patients in a late-stage study.

Initial data from the study also showed that the NanoTab System was significantly better than intravenous morphine.

In terms of the efficacy, ease-of-use and patient satisfaction, it was a great response, Guggenheim Partners analyst Louise Chen said.

“There are other pain drugs out there, but in terms of a drug-device combo like this, I am not currently aware of anything that’s out there or that is as far along as this, Chen said.

The treatment could bring in peak sales of $ 247 million in 2018. However, if the company’s ARX-01 technology replaces the standard therapy, peak sales could top $ 3 billion, Chen added.

Intravenous PCAs with morphine are commonly used on patients in hospitals to manage pain after a surgery. However, opioids such as morphine can cause side-effects such as nausea and vomiting, and also carry the risk of causing addiction.

“Given the significant shortcomings of intravenous morphine, we believe with superiority data from a sublingually administered analgesia will go a long way in creating strong demand and usage in the hospital setting,” Cowen & Co analyst Edward Nash wrote in a note.

AcelRx said its NanoTab device, which consists of a handheld system, provides a non-invasive and more mobile way of treating pain. Instead of morphine, the device administers sufentanil, another opioid that has relatively fewer side-effects and is already widely used in labor and cardiac surgeries.

The late-stage study tested ARX-01 Sufentanil NanoTab in patients who underwent major abdominal or orthopedic surgery.

AcelRx is testing the same device with different drugs in three other late-stage studies involving patients that have undergone other types of surgeries.

Analyst Nash said data released on Thursday improves the company’s chances of finding success with the other ongoing late-stage trials as well.

Analysts Chen and Nash both have a price target of $ 3.20 on AcelRx’s stock. Nash has an outperform rating on the stock, while Chen rates it a buy.

(Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in Bangalore; Editing by Roshni Menon)

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A father's anguish in Gaza

Jihad Misharawi carries his son’s body at a Gaza hospital. (AP)

Jihad Misharawi, a BBC Arabic correspondent who lives in Gaza, tragically became part of the story he's been covering on Wednesday, when an Israeli airstrike killed his 11-month-old son.

A chilling photo showing Misharawi carrying his son's body through al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City was published by the Associated Press and printed on the front page of Thursday's Washington Post.

According to Paul Danahar, the BBC's Middle East bureau chief, Misharawi's sister-in-law was also killed in the the airstrike that hit his home in Gaza. Misharawi's brother was also seriously wounded, Danahar said.

"This is a particularly difficult moment for the whole bureau in Gaza," BBC World editor Jon Williams wrote in a memo to colleagues. "We're fortunate to have such a committed and courageous team there. It's a sobering reminder of the challenges facing many of our colleagues."

At least 10 Palestinians, including Hamas military chief Ahmed al-Jabari, were killed during the Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday, Palestinians officials said.

Israel launched the operation in response to successive days of rocket fire coming out of Gaza. Hamas, meanwhile, warned Jabari's assassination "had opened the gates of hell."

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Beating tax cheats key to Italy’s recovery plan

ROME (AP) — Good plumbers may be worth their weight in gold, but when one was spotted zipping around in a bright red Ferrari, Italian tax police were fast on his trail.

Stamping out entrenched tax evasion is crucial to Premier Mario Monti‘s quest to keep Italy from succumbing to the European debt crisis, and it is critical to fellow eurozone members in more dire straits, such as Greece and Spain — which are also notorious for making cheating the taxman a way of life.

Indeed, Greece’s international rescue creditors have been pressing Greece for two years to reform its ailing tax system, citing poor collection as a key factor keeping the country mired in crisis. In Spain, where tax fraud is rampant, as much as €90 billion ($ 150 billion) is lost each year to tax fraud — the equivalent of the country’s national debt, according to Spain’s main tax inspectors union.

To succeed in Italy, authorities will have to catch the legions of self-employed and small business owners who brazenly lie about their earnings, like the plumber in the eastern town of Pescara, who socked away undeclared income in 30 bank accounts, or a successful pastry shop owner in Calabria, who on his tax return claimed he was earning next to crumbs.

And those are the less sophisticated schemers.

Tax police officials say that wealthy Italians, their companies and foreigners who make their money in Italy are increasingly trying to avoid taxes by using such strategies as falsely declaring that their base of operations or residence is abroad.

Another daunting challenge is the so-called “submerged” economy, a term embracing Italians who declare only a fraction or nothing at all of their earnings — and dentists, lawyers, doctors and other big-earning professionals are frequently among the worst offenders.

Tax evasion of all types in Italy totals about euros 240 billion ($ 300 billion), or 15 percent of the country’s gross domestic product of €1.6 trillion ($ 2 trillion), tax police estimate. Winning the war on tax cheats could therefore more than wipe out the country’s budget deficit, which is expected to increase to euros 42 billion ($ 53 billion), or 2.6 percent of GDP this year. That would start knocking away at the nation’s colossal public debt of €2 trillion ($ 2.5 trillion), or 125 percent of GDP.

But “big international frauds are up,” lamented Lt. Col. Gianluca Campana, in charge of the income tax unit revenue protection office at the Guardia di Finanza, Italy’s financial police corps which reports to the Economy Ministry.

The entrenched practice by many cafes, eateries, hair dressers and similar small business of neglecting to give customers mandatory cash register receipts commonly grabs the attention in crackdowns on tax evasion in Italy.

But, cautioned Campana, “one false (big business) invoice can equal no cash register receipts for coffees for two months.”

Over all of 2011, the total of non-declared income discovered by tax police amounted to some €50 billion ($ 65 billion), of which some 20 percent was due to international tax evasion, he said. By comparison, in the first nine months of this year, tax police discovered some €40 billion in undeclared income, with 30 percent of that blamed on international tax evasion, Campana said.

With the economic crisis shrinking bottom lines, and Italy increasingly on the hunt for big-time evasion, especially by big businesses, “there is a tendency to move capital abroad, using maneuvers apparently legal but which really are not,” Campana said. A classic technique consists of declaring one’s formal residence abroad in tax havens like Monte Carlo. Also common are companies that clearly have their business base in Italy but claim it is abroad in countries with far lower tax brackets.

Campana is armed with three degrees, including a masters in tax law from Milan’s Bocconi University, the prestigious economics institute formerly headed by Monti. He brings skills to this specialized police corps that are as finely tuned as sharp-shooting.

“We are going after the big cases (of evasion) in order to rake in more money,” Campana said.

The Ferrari-driving plumber hid some €2 million ($ 2.6 million) of his income over several years by giving his customers invoices — for jobs ranging from fixing leaks to installing new bathrooms — for the actual cost of his work, but kept a second, false registry of much lower figures for tax purposes, said Pescara tax police Col. Mauro Odorisio.

Armed with a 2008 law, authorities confiscated assets belonging to the plumber equivalent to the approximately €1 million ($ 1.3 million) they contend he owed in taxes, Odorisio said.

With Ferraris in red or yellow, and snazzy Porsches parked inside, Guardia di Finanza garages practically resemble luxury car dealerships.

The cars get sold to help recoup unpaid taxes and interest.

Overall, tax revenues in Italy were up by 4.1 percent, says the Economy Ministry, when comparing figures from the first eight months of 2012 with the same period in 2011, but much of that was due to new taxes, and not necessarily a revolution in citizens’ consciences about tax obligations.

Monti’s recipe relies heavily on taxes that are nearly impossible to avoid, such as sales tax. He also revived a property tax that his populist predecessor, Premier Silvio Berlusconi, had abolished in a promise to voters.

The ministry’s report last month noted that the property tax figured prominently in the “tendency toward growth” in tax revenues. But sales tax revenue dropped slightly despite higher sales tax rates, indicating that consumers were feeling the pinch of the stagnant economy.

The heavier fiscal burden seems to have driven some honest citizens to rebel against the engrained culture of tax evasion.

The number of phone calls from the public to the tax police’s hotline to report stores, restaurants and other businesses that didn’t give customers sales receipts has almost doubled in the first nine months of this year, compared with the same period in 2011.

It’s apparently dawning on Italians that shirking taxes in the end only costs them, in terms of ever-higher levies and cutbacks in public services.

Citizens now increasingly understand that “the lack of revenue over time caused by tax evaders forced the government to stiffen the tax burden on categories where you can’t evade taxes,” Campana said, referring to workers whose taxes are deducted from paychecks. Another area where evasion is close to impossible is real estate ownership.

Odorisio noted the crackdown included extending the statute of limitations on tax evasion from six to eight years and establishing prison as a penalty for big-time evasion.

Other weapons include a measure promoted by the Monti government that limits cash payments to no more than €1,000. Paying by credit card or personal check is a relatively new habit for Italians, who are used to carrying wads of cash in their pockets, even for big-ticket items like home renovations or vacations.

Past governments in Italy sometimes resorted to tax amnesties to try to boost revenues. But critics, contending some Italians counted on such a possibility, described that strategy as only perpetuating the tax cheat culture.

Spain hasn’t had much success with its own tax amnesty introduced by the conservative government in March. That measure, expiring soon, allows undeclared assets or those hidden in tax havens to be repatriated by paying a 10 percent tax without criminal penalty. The amnesty is estimated to recuperate far less than the expected €2.5 billion ($ 3.25 billion).

Greece saw demands for tax system reform from international rescue creditors added on to conditions for future rescue loan payments, as Greek authorities acknowledged that a high-profile campaign to crack down on major tax cheats has produced disappointing results.

The cash-strapped government over the last 10 months recovered just €19 million ($ 25 million) of the €13 billion ($ 17 billion) of arrears on the list. A prominent Greek magazine publisher recently tapped anger over rich tax evaders by publishing a list of people allegedly holding Swiss bank accounts. He was acquitted this month of breaching privacy laws.

Meanwhile, Italian tax police are chasing after cheats who have shown some of the most chutzpah about not paying their fair share of taxes, like the Padua woman who advertised on the Internet that she had a couple of “cash-only” bed and breakfast rooms to let.

Tax police discovered the lodgings are part of an apartment in public housing she was given after falsely declaring she was indigent on her annual tax forms.

____

AP reporters Derek Gatopoulos in Athens and Ciaran Giles in Madrid contributed to this report.

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Wakeman reworks rock epic Journey to Centre of Earth

LONDON (Reuters) – The story behind the upcoming re-issue of Rick Wakeman‘s 1974 concept album “Journey to the Center of the Earth” sounds almost as unlikely as the Jules Verne tale that inspired it.

Progressive rock veteran Wakeman had presumed the original orchestration to his chart-topping disc was lost for good when his record company MAM, where the manuscripts had been stored in boxes, was brought to its knees in the early 1980s.

Although he could have re-orchestrated the work from the original album, recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall in London in 1974, Wakeman knew it would be far from perfect.

And the original score was 55 minutes long whereas the 1974 version had to be cut to closer to 40 due to the constraints of vinyl recordings at the time.

“In about 1983 or 1984 I had an enquiry to do Journey again in America,” Wakeman recalled in a telephone interview.

“I thought ‘great’. But MAM had gone, and nobody there had any idea what had happened to all the stuff of mine,” the former Yes keyboardist told Reuters.

“Up until recently I would get phone calls to do it and I said ‘no, I can’t', there is no music any more. You just resign yourself to disappointment.”

Everything changed about four years ago when a box of papers arrived at his doorstep – a fairly regular occurrence, he explained, for a man who had been married several times and had “stuff in storage all over the place”.

Sifting through the contents, Wakeman found a pile of music that was not his own, but “something told me to empty the entire box.” At the very bottom was the long-lost conductor’s score of Journey, albeit so damp the pages were stuck together.

To this day Wakeman does not know where the box came from, and is amazed it reappeared nearly 30 years after going missing.

ORIGINAL SONGS

Once the music had been downloaded on to a computer, Wakeman set about reintroducing the songs and other sections he removed for the 1974 recording with the help of notes he had kept.

He decided to make a studio recording of the rock opera, and sought to replicate the sound of the original instruments.

For the narrator’s voice, he could not go back to David Hemmings, who died in 2003, and so invited actor Peter Egan.

The result is a re-mastered version of Journey, complete with 20 minutes of unheard music, which hits shelves on November 20. It comes in the form of a “fanback” comprising the music, a 132-page magazine and a replica of the program to the 1974 show.

For Wakeman it was a labor of love, but one he hopes will prove profitable.

“We did have record companies come forward,” the 63-year-old said. “But I don’t want an A&R (artists and repertoire) man coming in and saying it could do with this and that.

“The only way I can get this done as I believe it should be is to finance it and do it myself which we did. It broke the bank, there’s no doubt about it.”

While the concept of a rock opera based on French author Verne’s 1864 sci-fi classic may not instantly appeal to young listeners today, Wakeman believes there is a market for his latest release.

“Music audiences today don’t put a date on anything, they either like it or they don’t,” he said, adding that the “prog-rock” genre for which he is best known has made something of a comeback in recent years.

PROKOFIEV FAN

The prolific musician who has made around 100 albums and sold millions of records started piano lessons when he was seven, and at about that time the seeds of his career were sown.

“Story telling to music is something I have loved since my father took me to see ‘Peter and the Wolf’ aged eight, and (Sergei) Prokofiev became my hero,” he recalled.

By his late teens he was an established session musician and joined the band Yes in 1971 with whom he recorded the hit album “Fragile” and, the following year, “Close to the Edge”.

In 1973 he released “The Six Wives of Henry VIII” a solo concept album, and in 1974, which his official online biography calls “probably the most significant year in Rick’s career”, he made Journey and toured the world with it.

Another concept album, “The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table” followed in 1975, and Wakeman returned to Yes for spells throughout the 1990s.

Next week he plays six dates in South America, including the first concert performance of the new, full Journey and a rendition of The Six Wives.

The new “holy grail” following the rediscovery of Journey is to track down the original music to King Arthur, which was also lost. Wakeman is orchestrating the existing recording for a show next June, but would love to find the full score.

“All of us involved hope very much that it (Journey) makes its money back, because it would then allow me to look for the King Arthur music. We are doing a version next June and it would be lovely to say we’ve done it from the original music.”

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Scientists map domestic pig’s genome

LONDON (Reuters) – Scientists have mapped the genome of the domestic pig in a project that could enhance the animal’s use in the testing of drugs for human disease.

A study, published in science journal Nature, identified genes that could be linked with illnesses suffered by farmed pigs, providing a reference tool for selective breeding to increase their resistance to disease.

“This new analysis helps us understand the genetic mechanisms that enable high-quality pork production, feed efficiency and resistance to disease,” said Sonny Ramaswany, director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture‘s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

“This knowledge can ultimately help producers breed high-quality swine, lower production costs and improve sustainability.”

Alan Archibald at the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute in Scotland, who worked on the project with collaborators in the Netherlands and the United States, said the new genome sequence was the first good draft.

Archibald said while making sense of the analysis would take time, the benefits of genome sequencing flow through more quickly in agriculture than, for instance, human medicine, “because we can use selective breeding”.

Identifying genes responsible for diseases that are also seen in people could see pigs used more extensively for drug testing.

For instance, the inherited illness known as porcine stress syndrome, which can cause sudden death in pigs, has similarities to the human condition malignant hyperthermia which causes a fast and dangerous rise in body temperature in some people under general anesthetic.

Some of the genetic faults that pigs share with humans can be linked with conditions as varied as Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, dyslexia, obesity and Parkinson’s disease, the researchers said.

“In total, we found 112 positions where the porcine protein has the same amino acid that is implicated in a disease in humans,” they said.

(Editing by Dan Lalor)

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Obama holds first press conference since reelection

President Barack Obama opened his first press conference in months — and first since the election that gave him a second term — with a vow to work with both parties in Congress to tackle the so-called "fiscal cliff" and revive the economy. He also said he had "no evidence" that the scandal that led David Petraeus to resign in disgrace from his job as CIA director had led to breaches in classified national security material.

"Right now our economy is still recovering from a very deep and damaging crisis, so our top priority has to be jobs and growth," Obama said in opening remarks in the East Room of the White House.

"Both parties can work together" to address the fiscal challenges "in a balanced and responsible way," he said, before pushing Republicans to sign on to his call for raising taxes on the richest Americans.

In response to the first question, regarding Petraeus, Obama said he had "no evidence at this point from what I've seen" that there had been any national security breaches. And the president praised the retired general, saying "we are safer because of the work dave petraeus has done."

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