There is an event dedicated to trials in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). NextLevel Pharma’s CEE Clinical Development & Outsourcing event will examine regulatory, clinical, outsourcing and environmental factors that can impact the clinical trials landscape in specific locations in CEE. Particular and specific attention will be given to Russia and the Ukraine, the Balkan region, as well as central European EU member states and Turkey, via separate, focused conference tracks.

Merck’s new worries include an association between cholesterol drug Vytorin and cancer. The company’s own statisticians say the association is not significant. But Wall Street isn’t so sure. Some Wall Street analysts say even the hint of a linkage will affect prescribing patterns, CNN reports.

Pharmacopeia announced that it has identified a new lead for advancement in its alliance with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), through its collaboration with the Center of Excellence for External Drug Discovery (CEEDD). This newly identified lead is the first from a program being evaluated as a potential treatment for pain and the fifth lead identified since the alliance was initiated in 2006. As a result of this success, Pharmacopeia will receive a $500,000 milestone payment from GSK. “We are pleased to announce the identification of this fifth lead chemical series which exemplifies the continued success of our research and development collaboration with GSK,” said Maria Webb, Pharmacopeia’s VP of preclinical research, biological and pharmacological sciences.

Regulatory and document management firm Take Solutions announced four wins of unidentified customers. Here’s a news release.

Barack Obama is projecting massive, instantaneous cost savings if the U.S. adopts electronic health records (EHR). That sector seems to be heating up in anticipation of subsidies for physician computer systems. (On a personal note, ClinPage has long believed the federal government should purchase new computers for the news media, but that idea has not yet gained wide popularity.) Anyway, MedcomSoft is one of a group of vendors selected by the Maryland Health Care Commission (MHCC) to participate in the Maryland Electronic Health Record (EHR) adoption acceleration program. The MHCC received a grant from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS). “MedcomSoft is honored to be among the selected vendors for this groundbreaking initiative for EHR adoption,” states Rob Wilson, CEO of MedcomSoft. Here’s the release.

There is a new online medical encyclopedia in the works. Financed by Ooga Labs, it will be free and called Medpedia. Physicians, medical schools, hospitals, health organizations and public health professionals are participating. The goal: individual web pages for 30,000 diseases and 10,000 drugs. There is no launch date. Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health, the University of Michigan Medical School are leading the effort.

XML4Pharma was awarded CDISC certification for its ODM (operational data model) Study Designer program. “It allows automation of otherwise cumbersome and time consuming tasks like database creation, setting up the CDMS, design and generation of eCRFs, etc.,” the company notes in this announcement. The full list of certified CDISC solutions can be found here.

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