RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – In the latest Bulldog roundup of life science and technology news: GSK gets a lift as Express Scripts reinstates lung drug Advair; Comcast initiates amnesty, free service for the poor; FCC’s Friends and Family Plan; and Wikipedia link to be hidden in Google under ‘right to be forgotten’ law.
GSK gets a lift as Express Scripts reinstates lung drug Advair
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – GlaxoSmithKline received a boost on Monday from a decision by Express Scripts, the largest U.S. pharmacy benefit manager, to reinstate its top-selling lung drug Advair as an approved drug in 2015.
Read full story in Reuters.
Comcast initiates amnesty, free service for the poor
NEW YORK, N.Y. – Comcast might be able to clean its reputation up a bit after its debacle with a painful customer service call that went viral. The company has offered free services for low-income families. Comcast will introduce a program that will help low-income families receive Internet service for free for six months as well as an amnesty program. The program is a new part of its existing Internet Essential offering and it has been initiated in Georgia.
Read full story in Tech Times.
FCC’s Friends and Family Plan
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Racial spoils are making a comeback at the Federal Communications Commission after being put mostly to rest in an important 2006 reform. The latest sign is a quiet, nonpublic vote by Chairman Tom Wheeler and his two fellow Democrats to approve a waiver for minority entrepreneur David Grain, allowing him a 25% discount in this fall’s spectrum auction—a nice windfall. Grain already owns several spectrum licenses acquired as part of a swap between AT&T and Verizon—which he leases back to AT&T and Verizon. This alone should have made him ineligible for bidding credits. Credits aren’t supposed to be available to those who are looking merely to flip spectrum for easy profits. And this is just the latest action in favor of Grain’s private-equity fund, Grain Management.
Read full story in The Wall Street Journal
Wikipedia link to be hidden in Google under ‘right to be forgotten’ law
UNITED KINGDOM – Google is set to restrict search terms to a link to a Wikipedia article, in the first request under Europe’s controversial new “right to be forgotten” legislation to affect the online encyclopedia. The identity of the individual requesting a change to Google’s search results has not been disclosed and may never be known, but it is understood the request will be put into effect within days. Google and other search engines can only remove the link – as with other “right to be forgotten” requests, the web page itself will remain on Wikipedia.
Read full story in The Guardian.
