Orthodox Jewish school wins rescheduled playoff game to advance to Texas state championship game. [JTA] Early results for Iran’s parliamentary elections show lead for loyalists to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, trouble for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. [Haaretz] Obama cautions against a premature attack on Iran. [Debka] President Shimon Peres arrived in Washington last night where he is scheduled to deliver the opening address at the AIPAC conference, after which he will receive a life achievement award. …More

Rick Santorum, known for being a devout Catholic, was actually part of a Jewish fraternity while he was a student at Penn State. [Jewish Chronicle] Former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan spoke out against segregation of women in Israeli society, saying that he found the best Mossad agents to be female. [Ynet] Over 15,000 people have signed a petition urging the Israeli cabinet to approve a Dead Sea rehabilitation bill. [Ynet] Rabbi Ovadia Yosef published an essay in the Shas journal that criticized recent actions by …More

Eli Hurvitz, the former CEO of Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva, was hospitalized Sunday night at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer. His condition continues to be serious. Just two weeks ago, Hurvitz appeared at the Go4Europe business conference to accept a lifetime achievement award. "I am an Israeli. I was born in Israel. My parents came to this country as pioneers in the previous century to dry swamps; they met in a small village," Hurvitz said in his speech at the conference, which fosters investment …More

A jury ruled today that Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) and two other drugmakers must pay $162.5 million in punitive damages for selling the anesthetic Propofol in a way that led three colonoscopy patients to develop Hepatitis C, "Bloomberg" reports. Jurors in a Nevada state court in Las Vegas ordered the three companies to pay the punitive damages over sales of the anesthetic in vials large enough to be reused by doctors when performing colonoscopies, and thereby causing the spread …More

Israel's flourishing technology sector has earned the nickname "Silicon Wadi" (Arabic for "Valley") thanks to its powerful mix of pioneering high-tech and pharmaceutical companies and world-class research facilities such as the Weizmann Institute of Science and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The country has attracted global tech giants such as Intel, IBM, Microsoft, and Motorola, which run major engineering centers there, but also has produced scores of homegrown innovators such as Teva, the world's …More

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration told Teva Pharmaceutical Industries last week that it was lifting restrictions on drugs originating from the firm's Jerusalem plant. Teva received a letter from the FDA stating that all the issues raised in a warning letter to the company last January had been addressed. The FDA's cancellation of the warning follows its re-inspection of the pill-producing plant in the Har Hotzvim industrial park on June 19, which revealed no adverse findings. The FDA had sent Teva the warning …More

Israeli shares traded in New Yorkare heading for their worst month on record on concern globaleconomic growth is faltering and the Palestinian Authoritysquest for statehood may destabilize the country. The Bloomberg Israel-US 25 Index of the largest Israelicompanies that trade in the U.S. retreated 0.2 percent to 85.48yesterday, extending its August drop to 13 percent, the worstmonthly performance in data going back to September 2005.SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA), the maker of machines thatcarbonate water, …More

TheStreet Ratings has cut its recommendation for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) to "Hold" from "Buy", citing unimpressive net profit growth and generally disappointing performance by the share. It says that these weakness more than offset Teva's strength in revenue growth, attractive valuation levels, and good cash flow from operations. Despite slightly higher revenue growth than the industry average over the past year - 10.8% to 10.6% - this growth "does not appear to have trickled …More

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) is moving forward on plans to build a private natural gas-driven power station at its Teva Tech plant at Ramat Hovav in the Negev. The cost of a power plant of the size the company wants to build is $60-70 million. The power station will meet the factory's needs and Teva can sell the surplus to Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) (TASE: ELEC.B22). The Southern Regional Planning and Building Commission told Teva to submit an environmental impact statement …More

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) today lost a patent infringement case for generic Viagra brought by Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE; LSE: PFZ). The US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia upheld Pfizer patents and banned Teva from marketing its generic version of the erectile dysfunction treatment until October 2019. The decision is subject to appeal. Pfizer EVP and general counsel Amy Schulman said, "We are pleased that the court recognized the validity and enforceability of …More

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries suffered a setback Friday in defending its Copaxone patent: The U.S. District Court of Southern New York rejected the company's motion for a summary judgment to quash charges that it had acted unfairly while applying for the patent. The court set the starting date for the trial on this case for July 11, when Teva will defend itself against claims by Mylan and Sandoz, two companies challenging the patent. Proceedings on other legal matters involving the sides will commence on …More

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Canadian drug development company Apotex Inc. with the US District Court for the District of New Jersey. The lawsuit was filed after Apotex applied to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market a generic version of Azilect, Teva's brand treatment for Parkinson's disease. Azilect had $318 million in sales in 2010, and $90 million in sales in the first quarter of 2011. Teva's statement of claim …More