Pharma execs practice positive thinking

Throw a bunch of pharma execs into a room with financial analysts, and what do you get? Almost unmitigated hope. Thinking positive is a must when analysts are around, so as industry leaders stand up to address Bear Stearns' healthcare conference this week, they're trumpeting the growth in overseas markets, and soft-pedaling unpleasantness like layoffs and restructuring.

• Wyeth EVP Jim Connolly credited the overseas market with the success of its pneumonia vaccine Prevnar, the company's second-biggest seller; he said Prevnar sales rocketed to $1.2 billion in the first half of 2007, a 32 percent increase, and projected annual sales of $3 billion by 2009.
• Medtronic CEO William Hawkins predicted double-digit international growth pegging China as the big gorilla of overseas markets. Within 10 years, he said, China will supplant Japan as the company's second-biggest market. Meanwhile, the company's cutting 900 jobs.
• Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler said Asian and Latin American markets are growing at twice the rate of those in developed countries, and cited his company's new plants in China and new R&D in India and Korea as part of a strategy to take advantage of that growth. Pfizer, of course, is embroiled in a multibillion-dollar restructuring that includes some 10,000 layoffs.

- check out the report from CNNMoney

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