The inevitable and potentially imminent Zombie Apocalypse continues to excite software programmers everywhere. Following the release of "Zombies, Run!", an app that helps iPhone users get fit by simulating hordes of the undead from which to flee (see Trending, 28 March), we now have Map of the Dead (mapofthedead.com), a new aid to post-apocalyptic survival from Jeff Merrick of the Doejo digital agency.

Dechra Pharmaceuticals, which makes medicines for pets and livestock, yesterday spent €135m (£112m) buying a smaller Dutch rival that makes drugs for cattle, horses, dogs, pigs, cats and chickens.

Outlook: Ouch. TC-5214 has tipped up. AstraZeneca is facing up to the failure of yet another drug from its already limited looking pipeline of new treatments.

Richard Garner visits the Bolton state comprehensive where pupils can email tutors for help – day or night

Doctor who gave woman world's first lab-made body part predicts more breakthroughs to come

I've not heard much about him before...

A haul of suspected counterfeit sex drugs worth an estimated £140,000 has been found in police raids.

New technology means doctors will soon be able to regulate and monitor drug intake remotely – as long as patients remember to swallow their chips

A close friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer last year, and just before Christmas he had a very complicated and lengthy operation to remove his bladder. A little more than two years ago, I had a far less serious operation to excise one of my kidneys after I, too, had been diagnosed with cancer.

Manufacturing has sunk back into recession, the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics confirmed yesterday.

Remember Stella? No? Well, let me remind you. On World Aids Day in 2010 when I was guest editor of The Independent I chose a story to lead the paper about four-year-old Stella Mbabazi who became HIV-positive in her mother's womb. She had not died. Indeed she, and many like her in rural Uganda, was thriving thanks to a cheap supply of antiretroviral drugs from India.

Rescue workers struggled to reach dozens of survivors trapped in the rubble of a factory that collapsed in Lahore yesterday, killing at least nine people.

The mobile phone giant Vodafone has taken a major step towards a possible £10bn stock market float for its Vodafone India subsidiary, VIL, as former co-owner Essar completed its exit from the business yesterday.

The big deal wagon rolled on again in the City yesterday as IT giant Misys said it was in talks over a £2bn merger deal.