Bird flu strain poses ‘serious’ risk
The new H7N9 bird flu virus, which has infected 126 people in China and killed 24 over the past month, poses a “serious” threat to world health, virologists said on…
Novo Nordisk / Lundbeck: drugs kick in
The news from Denmark’s sizeable pharmaceuticals sector has been suitably Nordic noir recently. H Lundbeck, beset by patent expiry woes, had the mother of all profit warnings at the end…
Court stops release of EU drug trial data
The European Medicines Agency has been blocked from releasing clinical trial data generated by AbbVie and InterMune, under a court ruling issued on Tuesday with wide-ranging implications for the pharmaceuticals…
Second record day for Wall Street
US stocks closed at a record level for a second consecutive day, shaking off sluggishness from early trading after the pharmaceutical company Pfizer lowered its full-year profit outlook. The S&P…
Pfizer’s first-quarter sales fall 9%
Exchange-rate fluctuations and lowered guidance at Pfizer, the US-based pharmaceuticals group, helped drive a 9 per cent fall in first-quarter sales, below market expectations. The company posted adjusted diluted earnings…
Hopes gene therapy will treat heart failure
Britain’s first clinical trials of gene therapy to treat heart failure will get under way in the next few weeks. The treatment is designed to strengthen hearts that have been…
US pharma: spot the difference
The big US drug companies look eerily alike. Pfizer, Merck, Eli Lilly and AbbVie (formerly Abbott) are all expanding revenues between very little and not at all, a pattern that…
Bayer to buy Conceptus in $1bn deal
Bayer of Germany is to expand its contraception division with the $1.1bn acquisition of Conceptus, a US producer of birth-control implants. The deal would give the company control of Essure,…
Drive to raise $5.5bn to end public health blight
Prominent Middle Eastern individuals and institutions have backed a global campaign to stamp out polio, in an effort to cut through the deadly politics complicating efforts to root the disease…
Teva discovers fake versions of medicine
©Bloomberg Leading generic drugmakers are stepping up quality inspections in Europe after unearthing a sophisticated counterfeiting operation of a popular off-patent heartburn medicine. Robert Koremans, head of speciality medicines at…
Valeant and Actavis held $35bn merger talks
©Bloomberg Valeant Pharmaceuticals International and generic drugmaker Actavis were recently working on a merger that would have brought together two companies with a combined market capitalisation of $35bn, according to…
Letter from Lex: money to burn
What do you do when you have $145bn in cash? Borrow money of course. Apple’s plan to do just that to fund its $100bn capital return programme is not as…
Venture capital flight away from life sciences
Venture capitalists are fleeing investments in life sciences, as the costs, time, and uncertainty involved in developing medical ideas have risen to “crisis” levels, according to a new report released…
AstraZeneca: pipeline dreams
AstraZeneca’s share price has risen 10 per cent since Pascal Soriot was named chief executive at the end of August last year. In normal times, that would be ample reward…
AstraZeneca takes hit from generic rivals
©NewsCast The loss of exclusivity on some of its best-selling drugs has caused first-quarter pre-tax profit to fall more than a third at AstraZeneca, the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceuticals maker. The group…