Genentech Inc. and partner Biogen Idec Inc. said Wednesday the Food and Drug Administration is withholding a decision to expand approval of Rituxan as a leukemia treatment, pending further discussion.

Doctors completed the sixth successful procedure of a revolutionary brain cancer treatment. It forgoes traditional methods and administers Genentech's  chemo drug, Avastan directly into the tumor.

Asia will receive a stockpile of 500,000 courses of H1N1 flu drugs by April next year to supplement any shortfall in the region, an official with a Japanese donor agency said on Tuesday.

Criminal gangs are making millions of dollars out of the H1N1 flu pandemic by selling fake flu drugs over the internet, a web security firm said on Monday.

Swine flu is causing the worst flu season in the United States since 1997, when current measurements started, and has killed an estimated 3,900 people from April to October, U.S. health officials reported on Thursday.

Some pigs, turkeys and household pets have become infected with the H1N1 flu, but the pandemic virus does not yet appear to be spreading quickly among animals, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

Google says a board member who is also a director of computer maker Apple is stepping down, removing a potential conflict of interest as the two companies look to compete more directly.

Tamiflu can be given to babies less than six months of age during the current swine flu pandemic, Europe's medicines watchdog said on Friday.

Scientists offered new hope in the fight against a difficult-to-treat skin cancer on Wednesday as an early-stage clinical trial showed an experimental drug dramatically shrank tumors.

Doctors are reporting a severe form of swine flu that goes straight to the lungs, causing severe illness in otherwise healthy young people and requiring expensive hospital treatment, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

Teaching new mothers how to breast-feed could save 1.3 million children's lives every year, but many women get no help and give up trying, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

A bitter Congressional fight over the cost of superexpensive biotechnology drugs has come down to a single, hotly debated number: How many years should makers of those drugs be exempt from generic competition?