Lower sales for multiple medicines and a whopping charge for a big cancer drug collaboration drove Merck & Co. to a third-quarter loss of $56 million, but it still beat the muted expectations of Wall Street. The Kenilworth, New Jersey, company noted that a June cyberattack that shut down some factories temporarily cost it $310…
A Strong 2Q for Merck, Outlook Mixed
Sustained cost cuts helped push Merck’s second-quarter profit up 61 percent, easily topping Wall Street expectations, as growing sales of new cancer and hepatitis C medicines offset growing generic competition to older drugs. Still, the maker of blockbuster Januvia for type 2 diabetes and advanced cancer drug Keytruda trimmed its 2017 profit expectations, citing the…
Merck Beats 1Q Profit Views with Tight Cost Controls
Merck posted an 18 percent jump in first-quarter income, beating Wall Street expectations, as reduced spending on marketing, administration and research easily offset lower medicine sales outside the U.S. The second-biggest U.S. drugmaker on Thursday raised its 2016 financial forecasts. “We are off to a promising start this year,” CEO Kenneth Frazier told analysts on…
Medivation: No to Sanofi’s Renewed Press to Take $9.3B Offer
Medivation again rejected Sanofi’s bid to acquire the biologic drugmaker for $9.3 billion, saying Thursday that it “substantially undervalues” Medivation and its prospects. The swift response came hours after Paris-based Sanofi, France’s biggest drugmaker, threatened Medivation’s board members with possible removal if they won’t discuss a deal. Sanofi SA released a letter it sent to the board of Medivation,…
Johnson & Johnson Rides Strong Prescription Sales in 1Q
Johnson & Johnson beat Wall Street’s modest expectations despite a 0.6 percent decline in first-quarter profit, as higher sales of new prescription drugs and other key medicines nearly offset a big hit from the strong dollar. The world’s biggest maker of health care products on Tuesday reported net income of $4.29 billion, or $1.54 per share, down…
Valeant CEO Agrees to Be Deposed in Senate Drug Price Probe
The chief executive of embattled Valeant Pharmaceuticals, J. Michael Pearson, has agreed to be deposed by a Senate committee investigating the causes of soaring prescription medicine prices. Meanwhile, the Canadian drugmaker has received a notice of default from some bond holders because it hasn’t filed a financial report due in March. That’s been delayed by…
Allergan, Pfizer Call Off Proposed $160B Merger
The biggest U.S.-based drugmaker, Pfizer Inc., will stay put thanks to aggressive new Treasury Department rules that succeeded in blocking Pfizer from acquiring rival Allergan and moving to Ireland—on paper—to reduce its tax bill. As analysts and investors had expected, the two companies called off the record $160 billion merger early Wednesday “by mutual agreement.”…
Gilead Paying Up to $1.2B for Nimbus Unit, Drug Candidate
Biologic drugmaker Gilead Sciences Inc. said Monday that it will buy a subsidiary of Nimbus Therapeutics LLC and its experimental pill for an increasingly common metabolic disorder that causes life-threatening fat buildup in the liver. Gilead, based in Foster City, California, will pay $400 million for Nimbus Apollo Inc. Parent company Nimbus Therapeutics, based in…
Jury Rules in Favor of Merck in Hepatitis Drug Fight with Gilead
A federal jury in California has ruled in favor of drugmaker Merck & Co. in a high-stakes lawsuit against rival Gilead Sciences Inc. over patents for lucrative new drugs that rapidly cure hepatitis C. Merck accused Gilead of infringing on patents it filed over a decade ago, claiming Gilead’s sofosbuvir infringes on those patents. Merck, which is…
Pfizer Earnings Fall but Tops Street 4Q Forecasts
Pfizer Inc.’s fourth-quarter profit fell by half due to higher costs for production, administration and restructuring, but new revenue from an acquisition helped the world’s second-biggest drugmaker beat Wall Street expectations. The New York-based company’s revenue rose by 7 percent, ending a long stretch of declining sales due to generic competition to one-time blockbusters. For…
Drug Industry to Fight Superbugs Together with Governments
Dozens of makers of medicines and diagnostic tests have joined together in an unprecedented effort to tackle “superbugs”—infections that increasingly don’t respond to drugs and threaten millions of people in countries rich and poor. Altogether, 74 drugmakers, 11 makers of diagnostic tests, and nine industry groups have signed a groundbreaking agreement to work with governments…