Wyeth

On Monday, Pfizer announced it would sell its Capsugel business to private-equity firm KKR for $2.375 billion. If the hints the drugmaker has been giving lately are true, the move could be the start of two years of major asset sales. Here's what's ahead for the world's biggest pharmaceutical company.

Vaccine makers such as Pfizer are breathing easier now that the Supreme Court has ruled they can't be sued for defective vaccine designs. The majority opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia was unequivocal: Congress has barred lawsuits over the rare but unavoidable side effects of vital vaccines.

Wyeth Pharmecuticals on Wednesday lost its appeal of a decision that awarded $58 million in damages to three women who claimed the company's hormone-replacement drugs caused their breast cancer. The news could bode badly for the Pfizer-owned company, which has thousands of such cases pending.

It's an important question because 5,000 potential lawsuits alleging that vaccines caused autism lurk in the background, and vaccine makers threaten to stop producing the drugs if the suits are allowed.

With King in its fold, Pfizer -- which makes Lyrica and Celebrex -- believes it can build an industry-leading portfolio of pain relievers. Among King's most appealing entrants in that market is the new Embeda, designed to prevent misuse and abuse.

Pfizer reported Tuesday that its second-quarter profit increased 9%, handily beating analyst expectations, as it further cut costs and revenue jumped sharply due to its acquisition of Wyeth last October.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries said Tuesday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its generic version of Pfizer's antidepressant Effexor XR, or Venlafaxine.

The stock of the world's largest drugmaker has been a laggard lately. But that could be soon changing if analysts who are pointing to a solid lineup of new products are right. They think the giant can easily offset the patent loss for Lipitor.

For several years now, Big Pharma has been cutting massive numbers of jobs, so the announcement Tuesday from Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical firm, that it will lay off 6,000 more people as part of a manufacturing reorganization shouldn't surprise anyone.

Pfizer may be hatching plans to sell "biosimilars," cheaper versions of biotech medicines, of drugs developed by the world's largest independent biotech Amgen. That's causing concern not just at Amgen, but at other biotechs that fear such competition.