The federal judge overseeing much of the massive litigation over withdrawn painkiller Vioxx on Wednesday capped fees for plaintiffs' attorneys at a relatively low 32 percent of the $4.85 billion settlement, saying he had to ensure fees were reasonable.
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - The federal judge overseeing much of the massive litigation over withdrawn painkiller Vioxx on Wednesday capped fees for plaintiffs' attorneys at a relatively low 32 percent of the $4.85 billion settlement, saying he had to ensure fees were reasonable.
NEW YORK (AP) - Eli Lilly & Co. and Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. could feel more competitive pressure in the diabetes market as their drug Byetta comes under scrutiny after new patient deaths were reported Tuesday.
According to Bloomberg Moody’s Investors' Service raised the outlook for Merck’s (MRK) debt because it viewed the drug maker’s decision to begin making payments on legal settlements as a positive. Merck said last week that it will start mailing payments on some $4.85 billion in settlements to former users of the painkiller Vioxx. The actions prompted Moody’s to affirm Merck’s existing Aa3 long-term debt and Prime-1 short-term debt ratings as well as lift its outlook for the company from negative to developing. Moody’s said the compan???
Barry Ritholtz over at the Big Picture recently highlightedBloomberg'sChart of the Day showing that analyst profit forecasts are currently worse than ever.
With that in mind, we pulled up a post we did back in November highlighting the average analyst price targets for the 30 Dow stocks. After analyzing those price targets and where the stocks are now, it's clear that bear markets are definitely not an analyst's best friend.
“Merck lobbied every opinion leader, women’s group, medical society, politicians, and went directly to the people – it created a sense of panic that says you have to have this vaccine now.”- Dr. Diane Harper, professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School and a principal investigator on the clinical trial of Gardasil, to The New York Times
An editorial accompanying a study published by The New England Journal of Medicine(“Human Papillomavirus Vaccination - Reasons for Caution”)by Charlotte J. Haug, M.D., Ph.D), questioned the “lack of sufficient evidence of an effective vaccineagainst cervical cancer.”
I'm following the "buy the busted stocks" instead of breakouts methodology, but breaking a rule on buying individual biotech stocks with today's purchase of Amylin Pharmaceuticals (AMLN). This is one of the few biotechs I know pretty well, and have followed for quite a while - mostly due to its diabetes drug Byetta. Which is the cause of the recent ruckus - on Monday the FDA warned that Byetta might be linked to 6 severe cases of pancreatitis.
U.S. health regulators warned of more cases of dangerous pancreas inflammation in patients taking
Exchange traded notes [ETN] are a fairly new investment product that share some characteristics of exchange-traded funds, or ETFs. They are simply direct debt obligations issued by a bank or investment firm rather than an interest in a pool of securities that define an ETF.
A bank simply issues a note and promises to pay the holder whatever the total return of an index is over the maturity of the note, less a management fee. The bank may or may not...
The prices of many pharmaceutical companies have been beaten down by Wall Street in recent months. With companies like Pfizer (PFE), Schering-Plough (SGP) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) reaching lower lows, one has to wonder when the pain will end as these companies are now significantly undervalued.
The game of Wall Street is far from what many believe is true of the strong-form efficient market hypothesis – that the stock market efficiency causes share pries to always incorporate and reflect all relevant information. Since a majority of the market is comprised...
Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) made a $4.5B bid for the shares of ImClone (IMCL) it doesn't already own. Roche Holdings (RHHBY.PK) made a $44B offer for the shares of Genetech (DNA) it doesn't own. Both targets want the bid prices raised. Barron's Lawrence Strauss says these are just the two latest examples of an increasingly common biotech strategy to use mergers, buyouts, and takeovers as a way to fatten product pipeline (and profit) by acquiring promising and pre-tested biotech drugs.
Big Pharma is feeling the need to find new products with blockbuster potential as several important drugs approach...
Like many people on Seeking Alpha, I tend to watch a lot of Business-related programming on Bloomberg and BNN (Canada). Over the past few months, more and more Analysts and Fund Managers are telling the viewers to “get more defensive” in their portfolio. When asked which stocks the viewers should be looking, most of them listed off what I would call “Traditional Defensive” stocks
"Traditional Defensive" stocks are ones that are unlikely to see a huge drop in earnings, regardless of the state of the economy. The reason is that they are either things that people cannot...
Below we highlight the 30 Dow members with respect to their various trading ranges.
After the recent volatility in the markets (S&P 500 +2.9% on Tuesday, -1.8% yesterday) some of these stocks are on the move. BAC had traded at its theoretical high of $34 and has declined over the last five days (through Wednesday) into it "normal" range. XOM continues to show weakness as it is 4.7% below the lower end of its range while JNJ is approaching its theoretical high.
Is this round two of the price of oil vs. the Dow Industrials? Will the effects on the Dow of the 1973 Oil Crisis repeat itself? There are several similarities and differences. One similarity, which got me thinking, was that the percentage increase in oil prices was similar to today – albeit it happened slower this time.
The chart below compares the 1973 Dow Industrials with the price per barrel of oil. The charts begin with oil and the Dow Industrials with relative values of one.
There appears to be 16 year Dow growth investing cycles followed by 16 years of volatility. The 16 year period of volatility began in 1999, and on a historical basis would end in 2015. The following Dow Jones Industrial Average charts illustrate this point.
LONDON , Aug 28 ( Reuters ) - New screening tests and effective vaccines from Merck & Co ( MRK.N : Quote , Profile , Research , Stock Buzz ) and GlaxoSmithKline ( GSK.L : Quote , Profile , Research ...
LONDON - - ( Marketwire - August 27 , 2008 ) - MaybachFinancial . com is one of the fastest growing independent and unbiased research firms in the world.Through our numerous partnerships with ...
Aug . 25 ( Bloomberg ) - - Merck & Co . ' s debt rating outlook was raised to stable from developing by Moody's Investors Service , which cited the drugmaker's decision to begin making payments ...
As part of the $4.85 billion settlement of all Vioxx claims , Merck ( NYSE : MRK ) has agreed to begin payments to some of the nearly 50,000 claimants beginning August 28 , 2008.Vioxx was the ...
WASHINGTON , Aug 21 ( Reuters ) - US Food and Drug Administration officials plan to review recently publicized data that showed a higher rate of cancer in patients taking Merck & Co Inc ( MRK.N ...
- Merck ( nyse : MRK - news - people ) , up 0.67 euros , or 0.89 percent at 75.89 , after UBS ( nyse : UBS - news - people ) started the German drugmaker with a ' buy ' rating and a price target ...
Aug . 21 ( Bloomberg ) - - Merck & Co . ' s Gardasil cervical cancer vaccine isn ' t worth the cost for women over 18 years old , according to a study that may undercut the drugmaker's marketing ...
TRENTON , NJ - Partial payments for people claiming withdrawn painkiller Vioxx caused heart attacks will go out starting Aug . 28 under the $4.85 billion settlement between drugmaker Merck & ...
By the end of 2008 , the world headquarters of Merck & Company Inc . in Whitehouse Station , NJ , will have the largest ground - mounted solar power tracking system in the eastern half of the ...
Amylin Pharmaceuticals leads drug stocks lower as shares of the biotech group lose ground for the second day over safety concerns about its diabetes drug Byetta.
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The Food and Drug Administration warned doctors Friday that a combination of certain cholesterol and heart medications can result in a rare, and sometimes fatal, muscle wasting disorder. The FDA cautioned doctors not to prescribe more than 20 milligrams a day of simvastatin, an active ingredient in some cholesterol-reducing medications, to patients taking amiodarone, a medication used to treat irregular heart rhythms. Simvastatin is an active ingredient in Merck & Co.'s Zocor, Abbott Laboratories' Simcor, and the medication Vytorin, which is sold through a Merck and Schering-Plough Corp. joint venture. Amiodarone is sold...
Among the companies whose shares are expected to see active trade in Friday?s session are Activision Blizzard, Alpha Natural, Biogen Idec, CA, Chiquita Brands, Cigna, CSX, Elan, GM, Lehman Brothers, McAfee, Monster and Schering-Plough.
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Gilead Sciences Inc. said Friday that it has entered an agreement with Merck & Co. Inc. to distribute Atripla, a once-daily single-tablet HIV treatment, in 12 countries, mostly in Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region. Gilead will assume the lead role in the distribution deal, and the companies will share the revenues and costs for registering and distributing the product.
U.S. stocks tilt in mixed trade as crude comes off its lows and Wachovia Corp. fronts a turnaround among embattled financial shares after the large regional bank says it would not sell stock to raise capital.
Stocks seeing active trading on Tuesday include American Express, Apple, Boston Scientific, Cat, DuPont, Foundry Networks, Halliburton, KeyCorp, Lexmark, Lockheed Martin, Merck, SanDisk, Tellabs, TI, UPS and Wachovia.
Stocks 
Hickey and Walters (
The game of Wall Street is far from what many believe is true of the strong-form efficient market hypothesis – that the stock market efficiency causes share pries to always incorporate and reflect all relevant information. Since a majority of the market is comprised...
