Wall Street trips and falls on cloudy Italian election

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks on Monday suffered their biggest drop since November after a strong showing in Italian elections by groups opposed to the country's economic reforms triggered worry that Europe's debt problems could once again destabilize the global economy.

The decline marks the biggest percentage drop for the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index since November7, and drove the S&P down to its lowest close since January 18. The CBOE Volatility Index <.vix> or VIX, Wall Street's favorite barometer of fear, surged 34 percent, its biggest jump since August 18, 2011.

Selling accelerated late in the trading session after the S&P 500 fell below the 1,500 level, which has acted as a significant support point. Monday marked the S&P's first close under 1,500 since February 4.

Italy's center-left coalition holds a slim lead over former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right bloc in the election for the lower house of parliament, three TV projections indicated. But any government must also command a majority in the Senate, a race that is decided by region.

The resulting gridlock in parliament could lead to new elections and cast into doubt Italy's ability to pay down its debt.

"Europe hasn't gone away as an issue, it is going to hang around, and it is rearing its ugly head today," said Stephen Massocca, managing director of Wedbush Morgan in San Francisco.

"If someone gets elected who is simply not going to play by the rules, what are they going to do? It puts them in a real quandary here because their financial support, their monetary support is all stipulated by the fact that these austerity programs are going to be in place."

Earlier polls pointing to a center-left victory boosted stocks in Milan and other European markets, and also helped lift the S&P 500 to a session high of 1,525.84 on optimism that Italy would continue down its austerity path.

After a strong start to the year, equities have retreated more recently. The S&P 500's slight fall last week was its first weekly drop after a seven-week string of gains.

In Monday's volatile session, banks and other financial stocks were among the worst performers on worries about the sector's exposure to Italy's massive debt. The KBW Bank Index <.bkx> fell 2.7 percent.

The CBOE Volatility Index <.vix> ended at 18.99, up 34.02 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 216.40 points, or 1.55 percent, to 13,784.17 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> lost 27.75 points, or 1.83 percent, to 1,487.85. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> fell 45.57 points, or 1.44 percent, to 3,116.25.

Although the overall market lost ground on Monday, there were a few bright spots.

Barnes & Noble Inc shares shot up 11.5 percent to $15.06 after the bookseller's chairman offered to buy its declining retail business.

Amgen Inc shares climbed 3.1 percent to $89.55, after rival Affymax issued a voluntary recall of its only drug, an anemia treatment that competes with Amgen's top-selling red blood cell booster, Epogen. Affymax shares lost 85.4 percent to $2.42.

The FTSEurofirst-300 index of top European shares <.fteu3> edged up 0.04 percent and Italy's main FTSE MIB <.ftmib> ended up 0.7 percent after earlier gaining nearly 4 percent.

Political uncertainty on the home front, though, is also on Wall Street's mind.

U.S. equities will face a test with the looming debate over so-called sequestration - U.S. government budget cuts that will take effect starting on Friday if lawmakers fail to reach an agreement over spending and taxes. The White House issued warnings about the harm the cuts are likely to inflict on the economy if enacted.

"Sitting out there is the one-thousand-pound gorilla - the sequester issue - and certainly nothing is happening there," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York.

Lowe's Companies Inc lost 4.8 percent to $35.86 after the home improvement retailer posted fourth-quarter earnings.

With 83 percent of the S&P 500 companies having reported results so far, 69 percent beat profit expectations, compared with a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 6 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.

Volume was active with about 7.27 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE MKT and Nasdaq, above the daily average of 6.46 billion.

Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on both the NYSE and the Nasdaq by a ratio of about 4 to 1.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry, Nick Zieminski and Jan Paschal)

Read More..

Skepticism Surrounds Resumption of Nuclear Talks With Iran

ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Talks between Iran and six world powers over its nuclear program resume here on Tuesday after a break of eight months, but there is a general atmosphere of gloom about their prospects for success, even if narrowly defined.

Since talks in Moscow last June, Iran has continued to increase its stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent purity, has begun to install a new generation of centrifuges and has not yet completed an agreement on inspection of suspect military sites with the International Atomic Energy Agency, a deal originally advertised as all but done last May.

With presidential elections in Iran scheduled for June, senior Western diplomats involved with these talks expressed skepticism that Tehran’s chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, would be willing to make compromises that could be portrayed as weakness at home.

Mr. Jalili is the personal representative of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, considered the dominant voice on the nuclear issue. Ayatollah Khamenei has recently expressed continued mistrust of the United States and its intentions, saying that he would not allow the kind of bilateral talks between Washington and Tehran that most analysts think would be crucial to any resolution.

At the same time, Iran has taken some of its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium and converted it into reactor fuel, which cannot easily be turned back. The conversion means that Iran now has less of the uranium needed to make a bomb, reducing the sense of urgency among the six powers, and Israel, that its nuclear program needs to be slowed.

But the total Iranian stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium has nonetheless grown since November to 167 kilograms from 135 kilograms, according to the most recent I.A.E.A. report — closer to, if still significantly below, the 240 kilograms or 250 kilograms many experts consider necessary, once enriched further, to produce a nuclear weapon.

Iran denies that its nuclear program has any military aim. The six world powers, the so-called P5-plus-1 group, which are the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — and Germany, want Iran to obey Security Council resolutions ordering it to suspend enrichment and open itself up fully to I.A.E.A. inspectors, to ensure that there is no effort to build a nuclear weapon.

To press Iran to comply, the Security Council, the United States and the European Union have created an increasingly painful set of economic sanctions on Iran, as part of a dual-track strategy — negotiations and sanctions. Iran has for its part insisted that as a precondition for serious negotiations, the world should lift all the sanctions and recognize Iran’s “right to enrich,” which Iran asserts it has as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The negotiations have been tedious, with Iran appearing to be playing for time, diplomats say. The six powers had asked for a resumption of these talks as early as December, but Iran rejected dates and sites before finally suggesting and agreeing upon Almaty. The choice pleased Western diplomats for its symbolic value, since Kazakhstan, when it became independent of the Soviet Union, freely relinquished the nuclear weapons it had inherited from Moscow. American officials are holding up Kazakhstan, one of the world’s largest producers of uranium and a maker of nuclear fuel, as an example to Iran of the benefits of peaceful nuclear energy and compliance with the I.A.E.A.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan appealed to Tehran in a New York Times Op-Ed article in March 2012 to abandon what he suggested was its pursuit of nuclear power status. “Kazakhstan’s experience shows that nations can reap huge benefits from turning their backs on nuclear weapons,” he wrote.

While expectations are low, the six hope to leave here with some momentum and signs of Iranian willingness to engage in what all have agreed should be a reciprocal and step-by-step process of lifting sanctions in return for Iranian actions to comply.

“Iran needs to understand that there is an urgent need to make concrete and tangible progress” in these talks, said Michael Mann, the spokesman for Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief and chairwoman of the P5-plus-1 group.

Mr. Mann said that the six powers have together “prepared a good and updated offer for the talks which we believe is balanced and a fair basis for constructive talks” and that is “also responsive to Iranian ideas.”

Read More..

EADS, ThyssenKrupp attacked by Chinese hackers: report

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Airbus parent EADS and German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp recorded major attacks by Chinese hackers in 2012, German magazine Der Spiegel reported, citing unidentified people within the two companies.

That is a trend seen throughout the German economy, where companies are increasingly being attacked by Chinese hackers, the magazine said, citing information from the German government.

A spokesman for EADS told Reuters the attacks were “standard attacks” and the company was working closely with government authorities on the issue of cyber security.

ThyssenKrupp also confirmed an attack, saying it took place in the United States from a Chinese internet address and that it had no information as to what data the attackers obtained, according to Der Spiegel.

ThyssenKrupp was not immediately available for comment when tried by Reuters. The Chinese embassy in Berlin and the German economy ministry were also not immediately available to comment.

When confronted with similar accusations in the past, China’s Defence Ministry has issued a flat denial and said hacking is a global problem and that China is one of world’s biggest victims of cyber assaults.

Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution recorded almost 1,100 digital attacks from foreign secret services in 2012, mostly targeted on politicians involved with energy and finance, Der Spiegel said.

Chinese hackers tend to take aim at the largest corporations and most innovative technology companies, using trick emails that appear to come from trusted colleagues but bear attachments tainted with viruses, spyware and other malicious software, according to Western cyber investigators.

(Reporting by Peter Dinkloh, Tim Hepher and Alexandra Hudson; Editing by Mark Potter)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: EADS, ThyssenKrupp attacked by Chinese hackers: report
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/eads-thyssenkrupp-attacked-by-chinese-hackers-report/
Link To Post : EADS, ThyssenKrupp attacked by Chinese hackers: report
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Channing Tatum & Jenna Dewan-Tatum Show Off Baby Bump at Oscars

By Maggie Coughlan

02/24/2013 at 06:45 PM EST

Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan-Tatum

Jason Merritt/Getty

Who is your bump wearing?

Parents-to-be Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan-Tatum brought a very special guest to Sunday night's 85th Annual Academy Awards – wearing a black lace, backless dress, Dewan-Tatum, 32, showed off her new curves, while husband Tatum revealed where their baby will be born.

"I'm walking the carpet, trying to keep it together tonight but we're good!" a radiant Dewan-Tatum told Ryan Seacrest on the red carpet Sunday night.

When asked by Seacrest if the couple had any plans to slow down for some "family time," Tatum, 32, replied: "We're gonna actually have the baby in London while I'm shooting so there will be no downtime whatsoever after that."

Tatum – who was named PEOPLE's 2012 Sexiest Man Alive – recently told PEOPLE that he's doing his homework before the baby arrives.

"I have never changed a diaper before, so I may need some help learning," the actor said at the time. "I don't have friends who have kids, so it's going to be an interesting experience to learn how to change a diaper."

The couple's first child is due this summer.

Read More..

FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.

The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent dose of anti-tumor poison.

Cancer researchers say the drug is an important step forward because it delivers more medication while reducing the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy.

"This antibody goes seeking out the tumor cells, gets internalized and then explodes them from within. So it's very kind and gentle on the patients — there's no hair loss, no nausea, no vomiting," said Dr. Melody Cobleigh of Rush University Medical Center. "It's a revolutionary way of treating cancer."

Cobleigh helped conduct the key studies of the drug at the Chicago facility.

The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2. Breast cancer is the second most deadly form of cancer in U.S. women, and is expected to kill more than 39,000 Americans this year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The approval will help Roche's Genentech unit build on the blockbuster success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.

Genentech said Friday that Kadcyla will cost $9,800 per month, compared to $4,500 per month for regular Herceptin. The company estimates a full course of Kadcyla, about nine months of medicine, will cost $94,000.

FDA scientists said they approved the drug based on company studies showing Kadcyla delayed the progression of breast cancer by several months. Researchers reported last year that patients treated with the drug lived 9.6 months before death or the spread of their disease, compared with a little more than six months for patients treated with two other standard drugs, Tykerb and Xeloda.

Overall, patients taking Kadcyla lived about 2.6 years, compared with 2 years for patients taking the other drugs.

FDA specifically approved the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer who have already been treated with Herceptin and taxane, a widely used chemotherapy drug. Doctors are not required to follow FDA prescribing guidelines, and cancer researchers say the drug could have great potential in patients with earlier forms of breast cancer

Kadcyla will carry a boxed warning, the most severe type, alerting doctors and patients that the drug can cause liver toxicity, heart problems and potentially death. The drug can also cause severe birth defects and should not be used by pregnant women.

Kadcyla was developed by South San Francisco-based Genentech using drug-binding technology licensed from Waltham, Mass.-based ImmunoGen. The company developed the chemical that keeps the drug cocktail together and is scheduled to receive a $10.5 million payment from Genentech on the FDA decision. The company will also receive additional royalties on the drug's sales.

Shares of ImmunoGen Inc. rose 2 cents to $14.32 in afternoon trading. The stock has ttraded in a 52-wek range of $10.85 to $18.10.

Read More..

Investors face another Washington deadline

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors face another Washington-imposed deadline on government spending cuts next week, but it's not generating the same level of fear as two months ago when the "fiscal cliff" loomed large.

Investors in sectors most likely to be affected by the cuts, like defense, seem untroubled that the budget talks could send stocks tumbling.

Talks on the U.S. budget crisis began again this week leading up to the March 1 deadline for the so-called sequestration when $85 billion in automatic federal spending cuts are scheduled to take effect.

"It's at this point a political hot button in Washington but a very low level investor concern," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co. in Lake Oswego, Oregon. The fight pits President Barack Obama and fellow Democrats against congressional Republicans.

Stocks rallied in early January after a compromise temporarily avoided the fiscal cliff, and the Standard & Poor's 500 index <.spx> has risen 6.3 percent since the start of the year.

But the benchmark index lost steam this week, posting its first week of losses since the start of the year. Minutes on Wednesday from the last Federal Reserve meeting, which suggested the central bank may slow or stop its stimulus policy sooner than expected, provided the catalyst.

National elections in Italy on Sunday and Monday could also add to investor concern. Most investors expect a government headed by Pier Luigi Bersani to win and continue with reforms to tackle Italy's debt problems. However, a resurgence by former leader Silvio Berlusconi has raised doubts.

"Europe has been in the last six months less of a topic for the stock market, but the problems haven't gone away. This may bring back investor attention to that," said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

OPTIONS BULLS TARGET GAINS

The spending cuts, if they go ahead, could hit the defense industry particularly hard.

Yet in the options market, bulls were targeting gains in Lockheed Martin Corp , the Pentagon's biggest supplier.

Calls on the stock far outpaced puts, suggesting that many investors anticipate the stock to move higher. Overall options volume on the stock was 2.8 times the daily average with 17,000 calls and 3,360 puts traded, according to options analytics firm Trade Alert.

"The upside call buying in Lockheed solidifies the idea that option investors are not pricing in a lot of downside risk in most defense stocks from the likely impact of sequestration," said Jared Woodard, a founder of research and advisory firm condoroptions.com in Forest, Virginia.

The stock ended up 0.6 percent at $88.12 on Friday.

If lawmakers fail to reach an agreement on reducing the U.S. budget deficit in the next few days, a sequester would include significant cuts in defense spending. Companies such as General Dynamics Corp and Smith & Wesson Holding Corp could be affected.

General Dynamics Corp shares rose 1.2 percent to $67.32 and Smith & Wesson added 4.6 percent to $9.18 on Friday.

EYES ON GDP DATA, APPLE

The latest data on fourth-quarter U.S. gross domestic product is expected on Thursday, and some analysts predict an upward revision following trade data that showed America's deficit shrank in December to its narrowest in nearly three years.

U.S. GDP unexpectedly contracted in the fourth quarter, according to an earlier government estimate, but analysts said there was no reason for panic, given that consumer spending and business investment picked up.

Investors will be looking for any hints of changes in the Fed's policy of monetary easing when Fed Chairman Ben Bernake speaks before congressional committees on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Shares of Apple will be watched closely next week when the company's annual stockholders' meeting is held.

On Friday, a U.S. judge handed outspoken hedge fund manager David Einhorn a victory in his battle with the iPhone maker, blocking the company from moving forward with a shareholder vote on a controversial proposal to limit the company's ability to issue preferred stock.

(Additional reporting by Doris Frankel; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

Read More..

World Briefing | Middle East: Iran: News Agency Clarifies Drone Report

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said it had conducted tests aimed at bringing down a “hypothetical” foreign surveillance drone during a military exercise, the official Fars news agency said late Saturday, and did not actually shoot down or capture a foreign drone. The Islamic Republic News Agency, another official news agency, also reported on the exercise, but omitted the word hypothetical, giving the impression that a real drone had been downed. Other official Iranian media outlets later referred to the downing of a “hypothetical” aircraft after the initial erroneous accounts.

Read More..

Sorry, but there’s no defense for the Chromebook Pixel

I had originally decided not to write about how ridiculous Google’s (GOOG) Chromebook Pixel pricing was on Thursday because I figured it was so self-evident that I’d just be repeating what everyone else was already saying. But today I’ve found two contrarian pieces, one from Quartz and one from ZDNet, that make the case that the Chromebook Pixel actually is a brilliant move on Google’s part even if nobody actually ends up buying it. While both pieces do their best to paint a happy picture of the Chromebook Pixel, they both neglect to mention that Google’s strategy with the Pixel seems to fly in the face of everything it’s been trying to accomplish not only with Chromebooks, but with consumer electronics as a whole.

[More from BGR: iPhone found to be 300% more reliable than Samsung smartphones]

Before I go any further, let me say that I’ve long been a fan of Google’s approach to consumer electronics. I like the fact that the company not only opened up the smartphone market to several new manufacturers with its open-source Android platform, but that it also set the bar for low-cost Android tablets with the Nexus 7, which showed that inexpensive Android tablets don’t have to feel cheap. And until this week, I was a big fan of the Chromebook concept: There’s something very appealing about a bare-bones $ 250 laptop that relies on the cloud to store and deliver data and that comes free of the bloatware that has long plagued many Windows laptops.

[More from BGR: Leaked cases may reveal Galaxy S IV design]

All of which makes Google’s strategy with the Chromebook Pixel that much more baffling.

The whole point of Chromebooks is that they’re cheap laptop substitutes for people who just need a computer capable of surfing the web and not much else. Why would anyone pay $ 1,300 or more for a Chromebook that doesn’t differ much more functionality-wise from a Chromebook that costs $ 1,000 less?

As Quartz’s Christopher Mims acknowledges, the Chromebook Pixel’s “only tool” is “a web browser, through which you do all your work using web-based software, with all your files stored in the cloud.” In other words, it’s like all the other Chromebooks except it has a top-notch display and a faster processor, two things that aren’t all that necessary to perform the tasks that most people will use Chromebooks for.

In fact, the Chrome Pixel’s value proposition is so flat-out absurd that it has given me a whole new appreciation for personal computers, warts and all. Because when I’m editing a short movie for a presentation or playing Skyrim or basically doing anything that’s more sophisticated than surfing the web and sending email, I need a PC. And if I’m going to spend $ 1,300 on a computer, I can find things that deliver a lot more value than a web browser with a pretty screen.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Sorry, but there’s no defense for the Chromebook Pixel
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/sorry-but-theres-no-defense-for-the-chromebook-pixel/
Link To Post : Sorry, but there’s no defense for the Chromebook Pixel
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

From Homeless in the Congo to the Oscars Red Carpet: The Story You Must Read Before Tomorrow

Stylewatch
Style News Now

02/23/2013 at 05:40 PM ET

Courtesy Rachel Mwanza

One of the best stories from this year’s Oscars ceremony isn’t taking place on screen, but rather on the red carpet.

Rachel Mwanza, the 16-year-old star of the Best Foreign Language Film nominee War Witch, will be joining her fellow nominees in L.A. after obtaining a visa from the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo just days before the Oscars.

The young actress was “discovered” by the War Witch team from a documentary called Kinshasa Kids, which portrayed the life of Mwanza and other children living on the streets in the Congo.

Since being cast in the film, in which she plays a child kidnapped and enslaved to a life of guerilla warfare, her life has changed dramatically — from having a home and education paid for to winning a best actress award at the Berlin Film Festival.

And since her flight arrived late Friday night, she needed a red carpet-worthy dress quickly, which is where Rent the Runway stepped in.

The designer rental service rushed Mwanza several dresses to wear to the Independent Spirit Awards Saturday, from which she chose Kate Spade New York’s “Tiebreaker” style, adding Chamak by Priya Kakkar bangles and a Judith Leiber clutch.

“I’m so excited to be in Los Angeles. I’ve never seen the ocean before!” Mwanza tells PEOPLE through a translator. “I’m tired from my long trip, but way too excited to rest!”

She shared exclusive shots with PEOPLE (above) of her trying-on process, including shots of her caretaker “Mama” helping her zip into her final dress, and the many jewels she was sent to choose from.

And it didn’t take much to get Mwanza ready for her high-profile debut: “I’m going to work it on the red carpet,” she says. “I’ve been practicing my poses!”

The one disappointment from her trip so far? No sightings of a certain superstar. “Beyoncé is my favorite in the whole world. Why is she not here?!” Mwanza jokes.

Below, see a shot of Mwanza and her War Witch producers Marie-Claude Poulin and Pierre Even at the Independent Spirit Awards, and be sure to watch her film, which will be On Demand beginning Tuesday and in select theaters March 1.

And keep an eye out for her at the Oscars Sunday night, where she’ll be wearing a top-secret dress made for her by an African designer. Can’t wait to see her poses!

Courtesy Rachel Mwanza

–Alex Apatoff

PHOTOS: SEE MORE OSCARS STYLE HERE!

Read More..

FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.

The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent dose of anti-tumor poison.

Cancer researchers say the drug is an important step forward because it delivers more medication while reducing the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy.

"This antibody goes seeking out the tumor cells, gets internalized and then explodes them from within. So it's very kind and gentle on the patients — there's no hair loss, no nausea, no vomiting," said Dr. Melody Cobleigh of Rush University Medical Center. "It's a revolutionary way of treating cancer."

Cobleigh helped conduct the key studies of the drug at the Chicago facility.

The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2. Breast cancer is the second most deadly form of cancer in U.S. women, and is expected to kill more than 39,000 Americans this year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The approval will help Roche's Genentech unit build on the blockbuster success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.

Genentech said Friday that Kadcyla will cost $9,800 per month, compared to $4,500 per month for regular Herceptin. The company estimates a full course of Kadcyla, about nine months of medicine, will cost $94,000.

FDA scientists said they approved the drug based on company studies showing Kadcyla delayed the progression of breast cancer by several months. Researchers reported last year that patients treated with the drug lived 9.6 months before death or the spread of their disease, compared with a little more than six months for patients treated with two other standard drugs, Tykerb and Xeloda.

Overall, patients taking Kadcyla lived about 2.6 years, compared with 2 years for patients taking the other drugs.

FDA specifically approved the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer who have already been treated with Herceptin and taxane, a widely used chemotherapy drug. Doctors are not required to follow FDA prescribing guidelines, and cancer researchers say the drug could have great potential in patients with earlier forms of breast cancer

Kadcyla will carry a boxed warning, the most severe type, alerting doctors and patients that the drug can cause liver toxicity, heart problems and potentially death. The drug can also cause severe birth defects and should not be used by pregnant women.

Kadcyla was developed by South San Francisco-based Genentech using drug-binding technology licensed from Waltham, Mass.-based ImmunoGen. The company developed the chemical that keeps the drug cocktail together and is scheduled to receive a $10.5 million payment from Genentech on the FDA decision. The company will also receive additional royalties on the drug's sales.

Shares of ImmunoGen Inc. rose 2 cents to $14.32 in afternoon trading. The stock has ttraded in a 52-wek range of $10.85 to $18.10.

Read More..