There is good news from the USA this month as Wales has made the New York Times’ list of top 45 Places to Go in 2012. Other destinations featured include Tokyo, Florence and Moscow. The focus of the Wales entry is our new hiking path - the Wales Coast Path – which will create a pedestrian route around the country.  For the full listing, see http://tinyurl.com/6mlw478  

Also this week, Sophie Lewis, Manager of Sinfonia Cymru (Wales) is in New York at the ISPA (International Society for the Performing Arts) Annual Congress at the Times Center in New York. She is representing the UK along with the senior managers of five other UK Orchestras. Sinfonia Cymru is Wales’s foremost chamber orchestra consisting of talented musicians under the age of 28 and is the resident professional chamber orchestra at the new Dora Stoutzker Hall at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

And some good news for Cardiff University; American pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb has agreed the purchase of US biotech company Inhibitex, in a $2.5Bn (£1.6bn) deal which includes the promising new anti-hepatitis C drug INX-189, first designed and prepared in Cardiff University.

The buy-out means Bristol-Myers will continue the development of INX-189, created by Professor Chris McGuigan at the Welsh School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Professor McGuigan said: “At this drug’s current highly promising stage, Bristol-Myers Squibb is the ideal partner for quick progression to clinical approval. …This purchase is highly significant for Cardiff University, which stands to benefit financially at each stage of the drug’s progress.”

For the full story, see the Cardiff University website.

For more information on Wales’ links with America, take a look at our Wales and the USA  pages.