Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates pledged $250 million for a total of $450 million to a project he initiated in 2003 to get the world's top scientific minds to find remedies of the deadliest diseases.

He announced the contribution while delivering a speech as a featured speaker at the World Health Organization's annual assembly on Monday

A recent study showed that nearly half of those patients who took the experimental drug Revlimid, showed little signs of the gene mutation which causes the disease. In other cases, the abnormality was completely eradicated.

Specialists are now saying the drug looks like the first effective treatment for people with the cancer

Researchers discovered that patients with advanced lung cancer or advanced breast cancer who took Genentech Inc.'s cancer drug Avastin in combination with chemotherapy took longer to relapse than patients who took chemotherapy alone.

The data from two late-stage trials was released at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Orlando, Florida

An analysis of 194 trials involving 145,000 women showed treatments such as chemotherapy and hormonal therapy have greatly improved the survival of women diagnosed with early breast cancer.

Both therapies combined can halve the 15-year risk of death from the disease. More than a million women worldwide each year are diagnosed with breast cancer

San Diego biotech company, Arena Pharmaceuticals, says an experimental anti-obesity drug called ADP356 has done well in small clinical Phase II trials.

The drub, when taken at it's highest dose enabled obese people to lose an average of 2.9 pounds after 28 days, compared with just 0.7 pounds for those getting a placebo