When we last saw you, we mentioned something about raking leaves. Now, though, the leaves are nowhere to be found - they are covered by a slight dusting of snow. So rather than wield our rake, we chose to wield our laptop and bring you a few of the latest doings. Here they are…

Glaxo will offer $4 million retention packages and seats on the board to the two execs who lost out on succeeding JP Garnier as ceo, The Times of London reports. The offer, which has already been put to Glaxo shareholders, was made after Glaxo two months ago picked Andrew Witty ahead of his two internal rivals, Chris Viehbacher, president of US pharma, and David Stout, president of pharma operations. Shares will be handed out to Viehbacher and Stout over two to three years, and there is also likely to be a small cash payment.

Novartis will pay MorphoSys about $600 million as part of a 10-year deal to discover and develop drugs based on human antibodies, although payments could total more than $1 billion, depending on milestones contingent on successful clinical development and market approval of products, Reuters reports. Novartis will have almost exclusive access to the biotech’s human antibody libraries and any future improvements made during the collaboration. The deal is an expansion of an existing collaboration, which was struck in 2004. Novartis has the option to prolong the deal for another two years, or to conclude it after seven years in certain limited circumstances.

The controversial Avandia diabetes pill stimulates the action of a cell that drives the normal bodily process of reabsorbing bone, making bones more apt to break, Reuters reports. Previous studies established a heightened risk for bone fractures among women taking the Glaxo drug and the latest research, published in the journal Nature Medicine, offers an explanation. “I do not recommend that anyone goes off of the drug. But you have to know that there is this potential risk. And therefore it should be monitored,” says Ronald Evans, a professor of biology at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California who led the study.

Lawyers for Fosamax users who believe their jaws were damaged by the osteoporosis drug have asked a federal judge to order Merck to provide a dental monitoring program for patients, the Associated Press reports. The lawyers made the suggestion to US District Judge John Keenan as they argued for the case to be certified as a class action, in order to pursue claims by patients who believe the Fosamax caused osteonecrosis of the jaw, a condition in which portions of the jaw bone die, sometimes leaving the bone exposed.