Channel management in the chemical industry:selecting the right option

Channel management was not until recently the chemical manufacturers’ main concern. Their main priorities were to manufacture and innovate. It was only in the nineties that the marketing imperative prevailed and that cost efficient channel management processes were put in place. Producers facing a tougher competitive environment became aware of the importance to serve well their customers through direct and indirect channels. These channels adapted themselves to the growing needs of demanding customers who are seeking high quality and competitive products and services. In this article, we will highlight the relationship between producers’ channel management and marketing strategy, selecting and managing the right market channel and finally the main challenges facing European chemical distributors

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

Multiple loci on 8q24 associated with prostate cancer susceptibility

Previous studies have identified multiple loci on 8q24 associated with prostate cancer risk. We performed a comprehensive analysis of SNP associations across 8q24 by genotyping tag SNPs in 5,504 prostate cancer cases and 5,834 controls. We confirmed associations at three previously reported loci and identified additional loci in two other linkage disequilibrium blocks (rs1006908: per-allele OR = 0.87, P = 7.9 x 10(-8); rs620861: OR = 0.90, P = 4.8 x 10(-8)). Eight SNPs in five linkage disequilibrium blocks were independently associated with prostate cancer susceptibility

Identification of seven new prostate cancer susceptibility loci through a genome-wide association study

Prostate cancer (PrCa) is the most frequently diagnosed male cancer in developed countries. To identify common PrCa susceptibility alleles, we have previously conducted a genome-wide association study in which 541, 129 SNPs were genotyped in 1,854 PrCa cases with clinically detected disease and 1,894 controls. We have now evaluated promising associations in a second stage, in which we genotyped 43,671 SNPs in 3,650 PrCa cases and 3,940 controls, and a third stage, involving an additional 16,229 cases and 14,821 controls from 21 studies. In addition to previously identified loci, we identified a further seven new prostate cancer susceptibility loci on chromosomes 2, 4, 8, 11, and 22 (P=1.6×10−8 to P=2.7×10−33)

Siponimod versus placebo in secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (EXPAND): a double-blind, randomised, phase 3 study

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