Pharma Industry Archive

Novo CEO looks to Americas, Europe for growth — Bucking the general trend for pharma to expand in the developing world, Lars Sorensen, CEO of Denmark’s Novo Nordisk,told Forbes that the company was “going to see our main growth in the U.K., the U.S., Central Europe and Australia, as these countries use considerable resources to deal with inflammatory diseases.”...

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Pfizer looks to be preparing another round of mass layoffs for January. This thread on Cafe Pharma indicates January 26 is the key date. Back in October, a Pfizer spokesperson said that the reorganization of the company into three new business units would result in “no layoffs.” As BNET readers learned at the time, no one believed that because the company was already in the middle...

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CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer suggested recently that Pfizer ought to acquire Allergan, maker of Botox and Juvederm. Cramer is usually not worth listening to but this idea has some merit: A tie-up of the two companies has advantages for both. However, mergers don’t always go as planned, so it’s worth bearing in mind what could go wrong if Pfizer CEO Jeff Kindler is tempted out of...

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AstraZeneca knew as far back as 2000 that Seroquel, its atypical antipsychotic, could cause diabetes in users. Since then, 15,000 consumers have sued the company. Documents describing AZ’s early knowledge of Seroquel’s risks surfaced in court, according to Bloomberg. In one document, AZ Global Safety Officer Wayne Geller concluded there was “reasonable evidence to suggest Seroquel...

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650 Sanofi-Aventis sales reps face layoffs — Actually, the company hasn’t released a firm number, but they’ve said no more than 10 percent of the sales representatives will be affected, and there are currently about 6,500 reps. [Source: Pharmalot] Glaxo fights patent reform in court — Last year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office enacted new rules in an effort to speed...

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Pfizer whistleblower and compulsive blogger Peter Rost has tossed his Panama hat into the ring for the post of FDA commissioner in the new Obama administration. He’s got the “backing” — or at least the paperwork — of Sen. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Jo Ann Emerson. Rost is best-known as the former Pfizer vp who dragged the company’s name through the mud by...

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A small study has found a correlation between pregnant epileptic women who took the active ingredient in Depakote (Epilim in the U.K.) and autism in their children. The study will be published in the journal Neurology (no link yet). Here’s the meat of it: The study … followed 632 children from womb to birth and into childhood between 2000 and 2006. Nearly half the children were...

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BNET readers were informed on Nov. 24 that there would be mass layoffs at Sanofi-Aventis on Dec. 1. Lo and behold — it happened. The company says less than 10 percent of its sales force has been let go. The company employs 6,500 reps, so that’s 650 or fewer. (BNET predicted nearer 1,500 — oops!) Here’s a (very) rough list of which offices and territories lost people. And...

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A while ago, Medicis restated its numbers going back several quarters due to an accounting error. The mistake involved the company’s “sales return reserve,” a technical line on the company’s financial statements that few understand. Medicis has since filed new statements and they contain a surprise: A massive accumulation of $119 million in its “Deferred Tax...

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Goldman Sachs funds co-development business model — The bank will provide hundreds of millions of dollars to an as-yet-unnamed pharma company (although we know it isn’t AstraZeneca) in support of a more collaborative R&D model, in which the drug maker will collaborate with outside resources to hurry drugs to market. As Ed at Pharmalot writes, “The hope is to create more...

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