When Merck halted a late-stage study of its potential clot-preventing drug vorapaxar in stroke victims last week, it didn't explain why. Now, the company has confirmed it stopped the study after concerns that the drug increased the risk of bleeding in some patients.
Mergers, acquisitions and major restructurings made Big Pharma a much smaller and leaner sector, with some 54,000 jobs lost. At least that's better than 2009's 61,000 layoffs.
This little-known biopharmaceutical outfit has signed not just one but seven partnership pacts with Big Pharmas to help develop some of its products. Micromet's No. 1 appeal: It's developing novel antibody-based drugs to treat cancer, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
A group of J&J shareholders has filed a complaint against the company, accusing directors of ignoring warnings signs pertaining to J&J's massive product recalls and government probes of manufacturing defects and marketing practices.
Shares of drugmaker InterMune have more than doubled in premarket trading after a European advisory panel backed the company's experimental lung treatment Esbriet (pirfenidone), something the biotech failed to accomplish in the U.S.
The FDA disappointed AstraZeneca and its investors by not approving its heart drug Brilinta, a blood-thinner that the company -- facing a severe patent cliff -- has high hopes for. If approved, it could be a multibillion-dollar blockbuster. But the FDA wants to see more analyses of results from a major study.
Shares of Novartis soared higher on Wednesday, after the Swiss drug maker finally obtained the remaining outstanding shares of Alcon for $12.9 billion.
Paris-based pharma Sanofi-Aventis has pushed back its offer deadline for Massachusetts-based biotech Genzyme by six weeks. All other terms, including the $69 per share bid, remain unchanged. So far, very few shareholders have responded.
As part of its efforts to expand into the biotech market, Johnson & Johnson is making a long-anticipated bid for Dutch vaccine maker Crucell -- in spite of Crucell's recent manufacturing troubles.
At the 52nd annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology, which wraps up Tuesday, Novartis, Celgene and Seattle Genetics revealed the latest news from their studies on blood diseases and cancers. But despite some positive results, all three had down days in the stock market.
What's Spectrum's particular allure? Beyond being the subject of takeover rumor, it has two oncology drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration that are already on the market, plus two other promising drugs that are in late-stage clinical trials.
Here's a roundup of some of Wednesday's major pharmaceutical news: An FDA panel gave Human Genome Sciences a boost with a thumbs-up for its lupus drug, Benlysta; Merck's experimental heart drug appears to work well without side effects; and Novartis announced its plans for long-term growth.
Eli Lilly's blockbuster antidepressant Cymbalta can now also be marketed as a treatment for chronic musculoskeletal pain, such as osteoarthritis and lower back pain, following FDA approval yesterday.
Unlike generics, which are the exact chemical copies of a brand-name drug, biosimilars have large and often complex proteins that are made in living cells, and tiny differences can play havoc with the product. It may take years for the FDA to create an approval process.
The world's biggest drugmaker reported earnings of $4.4 billion that topped estimates but revenues of $16.2 billion fell short of expectations.