Abbot Laboratories has opened a new lab in Singapore that will focus on drug stability studies for new pharmaceutical compounds, the company announced yesterday.
The new facility will be at the Biopolis research park in Singapore, which will be its first research and development facility in Southeast Asia.
The company hopes that the purchase will facilitate the development of new investigational medicines, as well as accelerate the delivery of new treatments to patients in areas including neuroscience and cancer.
The campus will also support regulatory requirements for new medications.
Increased earnings likely helped fund the endeavor: Abbot saw an overall increase in fourth quarter earnings of 28 percent for its prescriptions drugs, medical devices and nutritional products. Abbott earned $1.54 billion (98 cents per share) during the quarter, up from $1.2 billion (77 cents per share) the year before. This is in stark contrast to J&J's market performance (see top story).
Abbot's global quarterly sales were also up by 10.1 percent to $7.95 billion, and the company says it expects overall 2009 earnings to be between $3.65 and $3.70 per share.
- check out the Abbott release
- read the Forbes story
- see more at Trading Markets
- find out about Abbot's earnings at Yahoo News