The latest quarterly filing from Warren Buffett's Bekshire Hathaway shows what changes the Oracle of Omaha made to his portfolio. What led him to buy into payment processor Fiserv and raise his stake in J&J?
French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis sent a letter to major U.S. biotech firm Genzyme proposing a friendly takeover valued at $69 a share, or $18.4 billion. But that's a lot less than $80 a share, or $21.3 billion, that sources say Genzyme is looking for.
On Thursday, Sanofi-Aventis reported its second-quarter net profit rose 7.6% to 2.48 billion euros, beating expectations. But the French drugmaker warned that earnings may fall for the full year, and it remained silent about its rumored plan to make a friendly bid for Genzyme.
Is Genzyme for sale? There's still no official confirmation, but Genzyme shares continued to rise on speculation the pharma firm may be a takeover target. Sanofi is a likely buyer, but other suitors are said to be waiting in the wings.
Pharmaceutical firm Sanofi-Aventis is preparing a major acquisition in the U.S. worth $20 billion or more, according to Bloomberg, which cited five people with knowledge of the situation.
Sanofi-Aventis announced it has entered into a global, strategic alliance with Regulus Therapeutics to discover, develop, and commercialize therapies for microRNAs -- a class of small RNA molecules that scientists call the master maestros of the genome.
Micromet shares traded some 3.3% higher on Monday after the small-cap biotech announced that its candidate drug blinatumomab led to remission in almost four-fifths of leukemia patients in a Phase II trial. It also said that a Phase I trial showed the drug induced durable remission in patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
As European markets sell off, there are bargain stocks to be found overseas. We screened for beaten-down, big-cap multinationals in the eurozone (trading on U.S. exchanges) that should benefit from currency weakness.
He's young, charismatic, innovative and has got heart. At least that's the impression GlaxoSmithKline CEO Andrew Witty gives to the outside world. GSK is allowing free access to its library of 13,500 potential malaria treatments. Is he genuinely a do-gooder or just good at PR?
President Obama can't be pleased by the loss of a Democratic Senate seat which jeopardizes passage of his cherished health-care reform. The news, however, appears to have fueled a mini stock rally in the health-care and pharma sectors wary of how any reform would affect their businesses. The uptrend is expected to continue.
Sanofi-Aventis announced Monday it will acquire Chattem Inc. for about $1.9 billion -- paying $93.50 per share, a 34% premium over Chattem's closing price Friday. The deal will create the world's fifth-largest consumer health-care company by revenues and helps Sanofi diversify into over-the-counter and consumer brands: a strategy used by Johnson & Johnson, and one many pharmas seek to adopt before the coming patent cliff.
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.
