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INDIANAPOLIS — A few months after launching its multichannel platform to inform and educate patients about healthy eating, physical activity and stress management, drug maker Eli Lilly has debuted a new YouTube channel.

RIDGEFIELD, Conn., and INDIANAPOLIS — Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly will present data from their diabetes portfolio at the 47th Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Lisbon, Portugal.

DARMSTADT, Germany — Merck KGaA announced that Robert Yates was named president of Merck Millipore, the drug maker's life science division.

Yates will report to Bernd Reckmann, who leads the company's chemicals business sector, which includes the Merck Millipore and performance materials division. Millipore was acquired by Merck in July 2010.

Prior to his new role, Yates worked at Roche for 22 years, most recently in Roche's diagnostics division, where he led the life sciences business in Penzberg, Germany.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — The Food and Drug Administration has accepted a regulatory approval application for a drug made by Vivus for treating erectile dysfunction.

Vivus said it expected the Food and Drug Administration to complete its review of the application for avanafil by April 29, 2012.

"We are pleased with FDA's acceptance of our NDA," Vivus president Peter Tam said. "If approved, avanafil could be a valuable treatment alternative for the 18 million men in the United States that suffer from ED."

PLEASANTON, Calif. — Safeway on Tuesday announced its offering of flu shots in its grocery stores — positioning its flu season inoculation as more convenient to drug stores.

"Safeway makes getting a flu shot more convenient than most other retailers offering immunizations, because consumers visit grocery stores on a regular basis," the supermarket chain stated. "In an average month, 49% of those surveyed said they visit grocery stores most often, compared [with] 8% who said they visit drug stores most often."

NEW YORK — Pfizer has completed its initial cash tender offer for all the shares of drug maker Icagen that it doesn't already own, Pfizer said Tuesday.

Pfizer, which already owns an 11% stake in Icagen, announced Thursday that it would acquire a majority stake in the company. As of Friday, when the initial tender offer period expired, about 4.6 million shares of Icagen had been put up for sale; combined with Pfizer's existing stake, this represents about 64% of the North Carolina-based maker of drugs for pain, epilepsy and inflammation.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The longer a person maintains a body mass index qualifying him or her as "obese," the greater risk he or she incurs in developing diabetes, a new study released Tuesday found.

PHILADELPHIA — Overweight people with lower back pain is more intense than people of normal weight with back pain, according to a recent study published in the Sept. 15 issue of Spine.

The study sets up another comorbidity associated with being overweight.