Regeneron, Eylea now 7 for 7 in beating Wall Street forecasts
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is like a sports team on a streak that keeps bettors in the money by beating bookmaker odds time and again. This streak has gone uninterrupted for nearly two years.
Slow Medicare spending protects pharma from payment board intravention
Drugmakers got good news about Medicare drug prices two years out, at least kind of. The good news is that the dreaded Independent Payment Advisory Board will not be in play for 2015 drug prices.
GSK monitored parents' online vaccination discussions for 2 months
GlaxoSmithKline has been listening to parents' concerns about childhood vaccinations. Really listening. In fact, it has used big data analytics to sift through thousands of comments from Internet chat forums to try to get a better grasp of exactly what objections there are and how to best face them.
Gilead profits surge 63%, but not where Wall Street expected
Gilead Sciences was in a position to say, "I told you so," when its first quarter earnings fell a little short of Wall Street expectations Thursday. Profits were still up 63% even as sales of older HIV drugs came in shy of forecasts.
Arena pulls app for weight-loss drug Belviq in EU
Arena Pharmaceuticals has decided to take its drug application and go home. The drugmaker Friday said it was giving up for now on breaking through the European wall of resistance to its weight-loss drug Belviq. The company, which got FDA approval last year, yanked its application with little explanation.
Sanofi taps new EVPs in commercial operations re-org
Sanofi is rejigging its commercial operations, with two new executive vice presidents stepping up to the plate to replace the retiring global operations President Hanspeter Spek.
Amid $2B in cost-cutting, Teva sales suffer from generic erosion
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries may be a generics behemoth, but its earnings this quarter bore a more-than-casual resemblance to Big Pharma's.
Z-Pak's fatal risks don't apply to the average patient, new study finds
The popular Z-Pak antibiotic, linked to heart-rhythm problems in March, may not be risky for the average patient, a new study suggests.
Sanofi sales, profits fall short, but CEO sticks to growth promises
WIth Sanofi riding the tail end of the latest earnings wave, its sales and profits shortfall feels like more of the same. It hasn't been a good quarter for Big Pharma, and Sanofi's results fall right in line with the rest. Its 5.3% sales drop was less severe than most, while its profits suffered a bit more, with a 34% decline.
Takeda persuades Actos judge to toss $6.5M jury verdict
The $6.5 million jury verdict in Takeda Pharmaceuticals' first Actos trial didn't last long. Judge Kenneth Freeman tossed out the jury's judgment, saying that plaintiffs' lawyers didn't prove that Jack Cooper's bladder cancer was linked to his use of Actos.
Even if Actavis buy fails, Valeant looks ready for bigger deals
Valeant CEO Michael Pearson hasn't made a secret of his ambitions. He wants to be within spitting distance of Big Pharma. So, it probably shouldn't have been a surprise that he and Actavis chief Paul Bisaro were talking about a merger. And now, expectations are wide open.
FDA breaks with expert advisers in rejecting Titan addiction med
Agency staffers stuck with the opinions outlined in a harsh internal review and rejected the opioid addiction drug.
Amgen blood drugs may help humans survive nuclear attack, FDA says
Here's a story that takes us back to our Cold War childhood. Two of Amgen's blockbuster blood drugs, Neulasta and Neupogen, may help victims survive after a nuclear attack, FDA staff reviewers say.
Novo's exceptional first quarter still disappoints
When can a drugmaker beat earnings expectations and project a 10% boost in profits for the year and still end up disappointing investors? When that drugmaker is Novo Nordisk, the world's largest insulin maker, focused on a rapidly growing treatment area with investors expecting more, more, more.
Lagging Januvia weighs on Merck's none-too-pretty first quarter
Nothing spoke more loudly today of Merck's current worries than its new $15 billion stock-buyback program. But with sales suffering from Singulair generics, an unexpected shortfall in Januvia sales, and a series of recent R&D disappointments to its credit, Merck needs all the investor-relations help it can get.
FDA rules on Plan B, but not on judge's order
In a move that appears to be testing the waters, the FDA on Thursday approved Plan B One-Step emergency contraception for sale to girls and women ages 15 and older without a prescription, and said it no longer could be kept behind the counter.
Ex-Genzyme chief Termeer joins board at Cambridge biotech
Moderna, which struck a major development deal with AstraZeneca just months after it shed stealth status, has landed former Genzyme CEO Henri Termeer for the board of directors
SEC probes former Dendreon CEO's stock sales
The Securities and Exchange Commission's insider trading team has Dendreon under a microscope. The agency has launched a civil investigation into stock trades by former CEO Mitchell Gold to see whether he acted on inside information about disappointing Provenge sales.
Novartis reverses course on Swiss OTC plant that was to be closed
Novartis is doing a complete U-turn on an OTC plant in Switzerland that 18 months ago was going to get the old heave-ho along with the people who worked there. Now the drugmaker says it will invest €150 million in the facility and anoint it a center of excellence.
Pfizer cuts forecast as Q1 sales fall $550M short of estimates
Like many of its rivals, Pfizer reported a dip in quarterly sales: 9%, to be exact, to $13.5 billion. But worse for Pfizer, the decline was bigger than analysts had expected.
