In today’s Bulldog wrapup of life science and technology news:

  • Quintiles bundles a series of services for drug firms
  • Intel buys PasswordBox
  • Samsung keeps mobile business chief
  • BlackBerry signs encryption deal with Germany
  • The EU steps up pressure on Google

The details:

  • Quintiles’ New Package

Life science services firm Quintiles is offering a new package of services to drug companies: A combination of pharmacovigilance, regulatory dossier/label maintenance, benefit-risk management, and analytic expertise into one integrated solution.

“This solution will help biopharmaceutical companies better manage all activities required to maintain the licenses for their portfolio of marketed products,” Quintiles says of its Marketed Product Maintenance offering. 

“Within most biopharmaceutical companies, regulatory, safety maintenance and benefit-risk management functions could benefit from more interdependence,” said Paula Brown Stafford, president of Clinical Development at Quintiles. “Meanwhile, these companies are facing more complex safety and regulatory requirements, along with increasing budget constraints, making it increasingly difficult to achieve their regulatory obligations while improving the total cost of managing their established products. Integrating these functions through our innovative MPM solution will assist customers in maximizing the commercial value of their established products.”

  • Intel Buys PasswordBox

Intel Corp. said Monday that it bought PasswordBox, a service that saves and remembers passwords so that users can log into different websites without having to remember or type in their passwords.

The Santa Clara, California-based chip maker did not disclose financial details of the deal.

Intel said PasswordBox has been downloaded 14 million times since its debut a year ago. The company will be a part of Intel’s security software business, which includes McAfee.

Besides managing passwords, PasswordBox can also store and encrypt credit card information for quicker checkouts when shopping online.

All of PasswordBox’s 44 employees, based in Montreal, have joined Intel.

  • Samsung Keeps Mobile Business Chief

 Samsung retained the chief of its mobile business in an annual executive reshuffle announced Monday despite a steep decline in mobile profit.

The extent of this year’s reshuffle was the smallest in recent years, showing how Samsung is opting for stability in its executive ranks in the absence of chairman Lee Kun-hee who was hospitalized in May after a heart attack.

Samsung spokesman Lee June said that Shin Jong-kyun, president of mobile communications at Samsung Electronics Co., has made a significant contribution to Samsung’s rise to world’s top mobile phone maker.

Some analysts expected Shin to step down to take responsibility for Samsung’s failure to respond quickly enough to the rise of Chinese smartphone makers and Apple’s new iPhones. Samsung’s third-quarter mobile profit fell to just one quarter of the previous year’s level.

But the size of the mobile team that Shin will continue to lead is likely to become much smaller than before. The company is scheduled to announce next week a reorganization of its business divisions.

Samsung is South Korea’s most valuable company with businesses in semiconductor, TV and home appliances as well as mobile phones.

The mobile phone business once contributed more than 60 percent of Samsung Electronics’ overall profit but that proportion fell to less than half in the latest quarter as Galaxy smartphones lost popularity to the iPhone 6 series and Xiaomi’s cheap phones in China.

Samsung said Hong Won Pyo, who was president and head of the Media Solution Center within Samsung’s mobile business, will now lead Samsung’s global marketing. Hong’s departure from Samsung’s mobile business signals a shift in the Media Solution Center, a group that was set up to lead development and partnerships for apps for Galaxy phones.

Three executives in the Samsung group were promoted to president level including one from Samsung’s TV business and one from Samsung’s memory chip business.

  • BackBerry Signs Encryption Deal

Germany has approved BlackBerry’s purchase of encryption firm Secusmart after signing a “no-spy” agreement with the Canadian smartphone maker.

Duesseldorf-based Secusmart provides special smartphones to German government officials that are meant to be safe from eavesdropping.

German media report that BlackBerry has agreed to provide Germany with access to software source codes.

Public broadcasters NDR and WDR, and daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung, also report that BlackBerry has provided Germany with assurances that it isn’t required to pass any confidential data to other governments.

Interior Ministry spokesman Johannes Dimroth declined to publicly comment on a confidential agreement but said “we have succeeded in protecting our security interests.”

Germany reacted with anger last year to reports, based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden, that the NSA had targeted Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone.

  •  EU Pressures Google

European Union institutions are piling pressure on Google to change the way it operates its business and applies EU rules.

The European parliament on Thursday approved a non-binding resolution that calls for the unbundling of search engines from other services that internet companies offer, a practice that could in theory lead to the break-up of giant internet companies like Google.

The resolution is a largely symbolic protest vote without immediate impact. But it was approved with a large majority — 384 votes to 174, with 56 abstentions — showing widespread political backing.

EU Digital Economy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger underscored the resolution was “an important expression of opinion” but he added the EU was far from tearing digital multinationals apart.

“I don’t think, at the end of the day, that the breaking up as such is what we can expect,” Oettinger said. “Rather we are talking about the consistent and correct implementation of EU legislation to ensure that the interests” of EU businesses and consumers are maintained.

EU antitrust authorities are currently investigating Google to see whether it is abusing its position following allegations it is biased in linking search results to its own services.

Competitors in Europe, where Google has an Internet search market share of about 90 percent, have complained about the way the company gives preference to its own Google-branded services at the top of search result pages, especially when consumers are likely to be searching for something to buy.

The EU Commission made it clear that the resolution will not have an impact on the investigation into Google.

On Wednesday, an EU data protection group advised that “the right to be forgotten” rule — which requires Google to delete upon request information that unfairly tarnishes an individual’s reputation — should be expanded to the general .com domains.

The purge of search results currently applies to Google’s local search pages covering the EU’s 28 member nations and four other European countries, encompassing more than 500 million people. Those who switch to the firm’s American domain, Google.com, can find unaltered search results.