GSK emerging sales surge; Pfizer's China strategy

What with all the job-cuts news this week, we weren't able to get to hit much more than the high points of Big Pharma's latest earnings reports. Here's a roundup of related news for your reading pleasure this weekend.

• Like several of its rivals, Sanofi-Aventis is expected to post a 3.5 percent rise in fourth-quarter adjusted net profit next week but give a prudent forecast for 2010 when battles with generic rivals will intensify.  Story [1]


• Surging sales in emerging markets helped GlaxoSmithKline compensate for declining revenues in the U.S.; CEO Andrew Witty, the architect of GSK's emerging-markets focus, said the growth shows that strategy is working. Report [2]


• Glaxo also said it will stop research into new antidepressants and focus on diseases for which it believes it can develop more valuable drugs--a major shift for a company that developed some of the biggest-selling antidepressants of the past 20 years. Report [3] | Item [4]


• Two and a half years after the papers were signed and the letterhead changed--and at the beginning of a year when the combined company had planned to deliver on some of its first milestones--some analysts say MedImmune has not measured up to the purchase price AstraZeneca paid. Story [5]


• During the Pfizer analyst call, executives talked about their strategies for winning market share in China--strategies that look a lot like its U.S. tactics back when it was fielding an enormous sales force, the Health Blog notes. Story [6]

That should keep you going for a couple days. Check back with us Monday for more.