There was a board proposal of changing Sanofi-Aventis name to just Sanofi and for this a nod has been given by shareholders at Sanofi-Aventis and that too with an immediate effect.

The decision did not surprise anyone and at Paris the vote was taken at the French drug maker's annual general meeting. The name sounded very long to chief executive Chris Viehbacher since 2008 when he took over as head of Sanofi-Aventis.

The drug company Sanofi-Aventis, based in France told that important distinctions continued to stay, despite that it has extended its tender to the U. S. firm Genzyme not even having raise in its price.

Sanofi-Aventis' experimental chemotherapy drug Jevtana gave a 30 per cent boost to the survival rate of men with prostate cancer whose tumors no longer respond to standard treatment.

Prospects of the drug are bright and the drug might be able to offset the French drugmaker's loss of patent protection on its existing blockbuster cancer medicine Taxotere later this year following these results based on an international Phase III clinical trial.

The US Food and Drug Administration and French drug-maker Sanofi-Aventis have jointly issued a warning against the careless and casual use of the firm's popular antidepressant Norpramin, stating that the medicine should be given under extreme caution to patients who have a family history of certain cardiovascular problems. The warning was issued on Wednesday.