Pharma Industry Archive

Schering-Plough’s Hassan touts pipeline — During the drug maker’s research update at its New Jersey facilities, CEO Fred Hassan told analysts that many drugs are in late-stage testing, three compounds are nearing FDA approval, and that SP has fewer impending patent expirations than its competitors. [Source: San Jose Mercury News and Pharmalot] Pfizer’s healthy pipeline,...

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Sanofi-Aventis has named a day for announcing its layoffs: Dec. 1, a source tells BNET. The Dec. 1 date already came up on Café Pharma as a possible timeframe for the call. The news gives Sanofi’s sales reps Thanksgiving but not Christmas/Hannukah to enjoy their jobs. Here’s the post on Café Pharma: RSD’s just recieved their list from the consultant company last week. They...

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A day of double good news for Sanofi-Aventis: First, its stock took a nice jump after Morgan Stanley raised its assessment of the company to “overweight” (meaning buy more stocks, not that it’s fat). Second, the company beat off an antitrust lawsuit filed by Louisiana Wholesale Drug Co. over the drug Arava, for rheumatoid arthritis. Morgan Stanley said: At current levels, we...

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The New York Times recycled an old story over the weekend about sports authorities considering a ban on the use of Pfizer’s Viagra and Eli Lilly’s Cialis among athletes. The erectile dysfunction drug is thought to increase bloodflow all over the body, not just you-know-where. The issue first made headlines back in 2006, when the Journal of Applied Physiology published a study...

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Moody’s, the debt rating service, cut its rating of the quality of Eli Lilly’s credit down to A1 from Aa3. The move indicates that Lilly’s acquisition of ImClone has come with a price on top of the one on the sales tag. Moody’s said: Although the ImClone acquisition creates favorable long term opportunities, Lilly’s former Aa3 rating could no longer be supported...

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Depomed, the Menlo Park, Calif., drug company that had only one Wall Street analyst on its Q3 conference call — hello, Scott Henry of Roth Capital! — finally has another friend. It signed a deal with Solvay Pharmaceuticals to market an extended release version of gabapentin. The deal potentially gives Depomed $405 million in various milestone payments; in return Solvay gets the...

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ImClone deal finished — The deal between Eli Lilly and ImClone, which attracted so much attention earlier this autumn, is finally closing. Lilly said the deal will be formally complete on Monday. [Source: WSJ Health Blog] FDA has already approved more compounds this year than last — 20 compounds have successfully completed FDA review this year to date, and the total for all of 2007...

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NPR says it will cancel the psychology show The Infinite Mind from its satellite radio service following a report in the New York Times that host Fred Goodwin took $1.3 million from drug companies such as GlaxoSmithKline and didn’t declare that to his listeners. The news will not come as a surprise to BNET readers who followed our brief series on antidepressants earlier this year. Following...

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Tom Daschle’s law firm is a lobbyist for Abbott Laboratories; his wife has lobbied for Amgen. Those are just two of the drug- and health-related potential conflicts that President-elect Obama’s new secretary of Health and Human Services will bring to the job. In addition to Abbott, the former Senate majority leader’s law firm, Alston & Bird, lobbies for Prime BioSolutions,...

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Robust pipeline at Novartis — During a meeting with investors, the drug maker revealed that it currently has 139 products in clinical development. Novartis also discussed three products it hopes will help it survive patent expiry on Diovan, a blockbuster worth billions. [Source: PharmaTimes] AstraZeneca cuts 1,300 jobs –  The layoffs occur across Europe, with workers in Spain,...

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