updated: Mon Mar 05 2012 12:52:00
The FDA changes labels on statin medications after reports of some side effects. Elizabeth Cohen has details.
The blockbuster drug Lipitor went generic Wednesday, likely costing its maker billions of dollars in sales, but saving its users a nice sum in their fight against cholesterol.
updated: Wed Nov 30 2011 03:19:00
The world's best-selling cholesterol drug will soon be available at a lower price. CNN's Elizabeth Cohen reports.
Lipitor, the popular cholesterol-lowering drug, loses its patent Wednesday, paving the way for cheaper generic versions.
Just after Thanksgiving this year, if all goes as planned, the pharmaceutical industry will pass a historic milestone: A generic version of Lipitor -- the biggest-selling prescription drug on the face of the earth -- will go on sale for the first time in the U.S.
Just after Thanksgiving this year, if all goes as planned, the pharmaceutical industry will pass a historic milestone: A generic version of Lipitor -- the biggest-selling prescription drug on the face of the earth -- will go on sale for the first time in the U.S.
Medco Health Solutions stockholders cheered when it topped profit estimates yesterday, but investors are really looking forward to what such pharmacy benefit managers might put under the tree for Christmas.
Pfizer is recalling an additional 38,000 bottles of the cholesterol-fighting drug Lipitor after reports of an odor linked to the packaging bottles, the drug company said in a statement.
Companies that offer health plans will see their costs jump 9% in 2011, and most employees will pay higher deductibles as a result, said a report released Monday.
More consumers, struggling to contain medical expenses, are resorting to "pill cutting" to makes their prescriptions last longer.
At first glance, Pfizer seems more virile than ever. The pharmaceutical giant has a sector-leading $26 billion in cash, and its profits last quarter were triple the year before. Pfizer's portfolio includes household names such as Viagra, the famous blue impotency pill, and Lipitor, the anti-cholesterol drug that is the world's best-selling medication.
The sales rate of prescription medications slowed by more than half in 2007 to levels not seen since the early 1960s, according to a report released Wednesday.
Pfizer Inc.'s chief executive Jeffrey Kindler on Wednesday dismissed the idea that the drugmaker will go after any big acquisitions, because they're "disruptive" he said.
After feeling pressure Pfizer stops using the developer of the artificial heart in its ads for Lipitor. But questions about drug marketing aren't going away
updated: Mon Nov 05 2007 16:58:00
UK drugmaker AstraZeneca suffers a drop in earnings. CNN's Charles Hodson speaks with CEO David Brennan.
A researcher unveiled on Monday the results of a failed Pfizer Inc. study showing that an experimental but dangerous cholesterol drug offers medical benefits too significant to be ignored.
A friend once told me about the Buddhist concept of pain without suffering; it's a notion that fascinates me. I mean, is it really possible to say, "Yep, my stomach aches, all right, but I don't have to add insult to injury by letting that pain run amok: I can decide to skip the part where I moan, 'Now I can't meet my friends at the movie and I'll probably miss work tomorrow, which means I'll blow my deadline, lose my job and die penniless and alone, never having seen "Dreamgirls.'"
In the last week of trading, shares of French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis have jumped 5.5% on rumors that U.S. pharma giant Pfizer is pondering the purchase of a significant share of its business. There are two hypothetical scenarios now circulating the markets. One of them makes sense for Pfizer. The other? Not so much.
Patients who switched from the cholesterol-cutting drug Lipitor to the competitor simvastatin increased their risk of suffering heart attacks and strokes, according to a study that Pfizer unveiled on Wednesday.
Patients who switched from the cholesterol-cutting drug Lipitor to the competitor simvastatin increased their risk of suffering heart attacks and strokes, according to a study that Pfizer unveiled on Wednesday.
The successful launch of a blockbuster drug depends heavily on Big Pharma's ability to custom-tailor its sales pitch country-by-country, a difficult task in which few drugmakers excel, according to a study from research firm IMS Health.
Pfizer lost the latest round in a patent battle over the declining blockbuster Lipitor that could be worth $6 billion to the pharma giant.
Pfizer Inc. on Wednesday reported lower-than-expected quarterly earnings on competition with generics, and said global sales of cholesterol fighter Lipitor fell 13 percent amid slipping demand for the company's flagship product.
Pfizer is not in the best of shape. The beating its stock took on Wednesday shows it. The question is, should the drug maker diet or bulk up?
Cholesterol-lowering statins - which include the world's top-selling drug, Lipitor - and other drugs called fibrates can lower the risk of developing a common form of nerve damage in diabetics that often results in amputations, according to study results unveiled Friday.
As Big Pharma faces patent expirations on some of its most lucrative drugs, the industry is trying to reinvigorate sales by finding creative ways to land new patents - but on the same old drugs.
There's nothing unusual about a Big Pharma company with outgoing blockbusters and a weak pipeline. Virtually every major drugmaker in America is struggling with this issue.
For as long as anyone on Wall Street can remember, Pfizer executives have promised to follow up Lipitor, the company's blockbuster cholesterol pill, with something even bigger and better.
Pfizer stock tumbled Monday after the world's biggest drugmaker abruptly pulled the plug on its most important experimental medicine - a drug meant to treat heart disease that instead caused an increase in deaths and heart problems in people taking it in a clinical trial.
Pfizer stock tumbled Monday after the world's biggest drugmaker halted development of its most important experimental medicine.
Pfizer's CEO raised the No. 1 drugmaker's earnings guidance for 2006, and executives said the company plans to triple its late-stage drug pipeline by 2009.
You'd think 12,000 scientists could fill a drug pipeline. And they probably can. But can they fill it to Wall Street's satisfaction?
Even if you're in perfect health now, just thinking about the cost of medical care is bound to make you feel a little ill. With the price of everything from hospital visits to prescription drugs up...
It may be America's No. 1 killer, but people aren't scared enough of heart disease, says a top U.S. research cardiologist.
Pfizer's basic patent on its top-selling drug Lipitor was upheld in federal court Wednesday, but a second, longer-running patent was ruled invalid, possibly eliminating billions of dollars in potential sales.
Pfizer's old reliable - the anti-cholesterol drug Lipitor - could very well be the hero of the second quarter.
The world's biggest drugmaker is launching a potential blockbuster today, but it's going to take more than that for the company to pull out of its rut.
Two of the biggest blockbuster drugs from the two biggest drugmakers in America are losing patent protection this month, setting the stage for a multi-billion dollar sales vacuum.
Two of the biggest blockbuster drugs from the two biggest drug makers in America are losing patent protection this month, setting the stage for a multi-billion dollar sales vacuum.
Merck and Schering-Plough fired a shot across Pfizer's bow in the battle for control of the lucrative $25 billion cholesterol market with a new study saying their product is better for diabetics.
Lipitor, the world's top-selling drug from the world's leading pharmaceutical company, has been targeted by two lawsuits blaming it for memory loss and damage to the nervous system.
Merck is funding a large-scale study to see if an experimental drug that boosts a certain type of cholesterol can prevent heart attacks and strokes, possibly strengthening its position in the $25 billion cholesterol industry even as a key blockbuster teeters on the brink of patent expiration.
Bill Fries loves unloved stocks, and more often than not they love him back. Fries' $2.4 billion Thornburg Value fund boasts a three-year annualized return of 18.3%, three percentage points better ...
Big drugmakers put up mostly strong earnings this week, triggering a variety of reactions on the stock market and a mixed bag of analyst expectations for the year.
Pfizer Inc., the nation's biggest drugmaker, easily topped first-quarter estimates Wednesday and reiterated its earlier revenue and earnings guidance for this year and beyond.
IS Hank McKinnell a failure? A success? Or something in between? Those are the questions people in and out of Pfizer are pondering as its CEO enters his final years on the job.
Pfizer faces a lawsuit claiming it marketed the cholesterol-reducing drug Lipitor for non-approved purposes -- a claim it may hear a lot as states battle costs due to expanded Medicare drug coverage.
Potential buyers are knocking on Pfizer's door for its $10 billion consumer products division, and people are scratching their heads over what the company plans to once they get their hands on the money.
Schering-Plough, once the troubled child of the drug industry, is making a comeback with a hot new drug.
Pfizer stock's got battered and bloodied last year, but it's making a comeback.
In certain K Street corridors -- not to mention whole swaths of New Jersey and Pennsylvania -- this year's most controversial Oscar-nominated film isn't "Brokeback Mountain." It's "The Constant Gardener," a suspense-thriller whose chief villain is a big, bad drug company.
Drug sales, bolstered by Medicare coverage, are projected to keep rising for the next 10 years, and biotechs are expected to get the lion's share of that increase, while the more traditional Big Pharma companies get squeezed by generic drug makers.
Drug sales, bolstered by Medicare coverage, are projected to keep rising for the next 10 years, and biotechs are expected to get the lion's share of that increase, while the more traditional Big Pharma companies get squeezed by generic drug makers.
Drugs that lower cholesterol also have life-saving potential for stroke patients, according to a study released Thursday. Investing analysts doubt that this new benefit will add momentum to drug sales.
Pfizer, the behemoth of drug makers, is on the hot seat this week.
Lipitor, the world's top-selling drug from the world's biggest drug company, created cause for concern in Pfizer's 2005 fourth quarter.
Drug stocks took a pummeling in 2005, sliding in value and underperforming the S&P index, and analysts are mixed as to what Baby New Year will bring.
Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan raised short-term interest rates last week to 4.25 percent, the highest level in 4-1/2 years.
Pfizer shares surged Monday after several analysts made positive comments about the stock following the drugmaker's victory in a battle over the patent for Lipitor, the world's best selling prescription medicine.
After the market closed on Friday and trading floors began to empty for the holidays, there suddenly came long-awaited and momentous news about one of the world's biggest companies.
Pfizer failed to prove that Lipitor, its top-selling cholesterol reducer, does a significantly better job in reducing fatal heart attacks that Merck's cholesterol-cutting Zocor, the company said at the American Heart Association conference Tuesday.
Picking stocks is an inexact science--so inexact you can be wrong even when you're right. Just consider the story we did on health-care stocks back in May 2004. (See "Rx for Investors" on fortune.com.) We argued that the health-care sector would continue to outpace the broader stock market, just as it has since the mid-1990s, serving the medical needs of an aging populace. "There's no denying the sheer market potential of 75 million trick-kneed, Prevacid-popping, ointment-loving consumers," we wrote. "You can almost hear the cash registers ring." Well, a year and a half later, the only thing ringing has been alarm bells. Concerns about drug patent expirations and meager new-product pipelines have sidetracked pharmaceutical stocks. Pharma industry tracker IMS Health expects growth in drug sales in 2006 to be the lowest in ten years. And in the medical devices arena, fierce competition and increased pricing pressure are crimping earnings growth. The Feds aren't helping either: In September, Guidant, Medtron
Pfizer, one of the top players in the $60 billion market for heart-disease drugs, said that next week it will unveil data on an experimental smoking cessation drug that analysts say has blockbuster potential.
Techs stemmed losses Tuesday sparked by disappointing revenues from Apple and a downgrade to Intel, but major gauges were still near fresh multi-month lows.
Pfizer's positive ruling in a patent suit fired up the stock and gave a lift to the Dow industrials Wednesday morning.
Investors are biting their nails over Pfizer's future with Lipitor, which could become an unprecedented $14 billion blockbuster by 2007, or could take an $8 billion hit to sales, depending on the outcome of its patent litigation cases.
Some scientists look down their noses at me-too drugs, but they can't help but notice the smell of money.
Pfizer Inc. said on Wednesday it has begun production of a key new drug that combines its best-selling cholesterol drug Lipitor with a new compound designed to raise levels of "good" cholesterol.
For pharma investors the symptoms of anemia--or worse--are everywhere: Drug recalls. Patent expirations. A dearth of new blockbusters. Pfizer (PFE, $27), the largest pharmaceutical company in the w...
As long as Americans keep getting older, there's money in pharma. Risk: No one's sure how much is in the new-drug pipeline.
The latest readings on consumer confidence and Midwest manufacturing will be two of the keys for investors as they start what could be another light session Tuesday.
Tired of paying up for life's necessities? There are many ways to save on the things you need every day.
Will one statin a day keep the doctor away? That's the question Americans and their doctors are asking as medical research suggests the drugs do far more than lower cholesterol. The buzz started ...
Prices for the top 200 brand-name drugs rose 3.4 percent in the first quarter, nearly triple the rate of inflation, according to a recent AARP report. The increase is one of the sharpest quarterly spikes since 2000.
[HIT] Truth in advertising. Most tourist destinations have been hit by the double whammy of recession and security fears. But not Las Vegas, thanks in part to a $60 million ad campaign that makes h...
The share of new prescriptions written for the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor surged during the past week as the Pfizer Inc. (PFE) blockbuster got a boost from a big study showing it was better than Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s ( BMY) Pravachol in preventing heart attacks, Thursday's Wall Street Journal reported.
For years we've heard that the pharmaceutical sector is the closest we have come to a sure thing in the world of investing. We practically know the arguments by heart. America is aging: We need mor...
In the future, successful drug companies will have to come up with innovative cures for complex, hard-to-treat conditions like cancer -- without letting their research-and-development spending get out of hand.
As Bruce Roth moves about his small town of Plymouth, Mich., it's not unusual for people to buttonhole him in line at the supermarket, or corner him at a dinner party, and offer their gratitude. "I...
Move over, cholesterol. The latest heart-attack culprit is C-reactive protein (CRP). CRP, which is produced when arteries are inflamed, was nailed in a groundbreaking November New England Journal o...
You get a prescription, you pop your pills, and in a few days you feel better. Sounds easy. But taking medicine is not as simple as it seems. And we'd do a much better job of treating what ails us ...
You'd think Mr. Cholesterol would have been routed in the past decade. Studies paint an ever starker picture of the danger posed by fatty deposits in the bloodstream. Anti-cholesterol "statins" lik...
Last year, a heart attack nearly killed Judy Whalen. She was visiting with friends at the Everett, Wash. Elks Club when she suddenly fell out of her chair. Whalen was dead for three to six minutes ...
What do you call a drug company on Viagra? Pfizer, of course.
Despite some minor earpiece microphone problems, the interview on Nov. 4 went quite well. Looking relaxed and sounding upbeat, Warner-Lambert chairman Lodewijk de Vink and American Home Products CE...
Is there a pill that cures merger madness? Warner-Lambert, American Home Products, Glaxo Wellcome, SmithKline Beecham, Pharmacia Upjohn and Monsanto are all talking deals; essentially, the entire i...
Drug stocks have been stars of the 15-year bull market, with top names like Pfizer and Merck posting average annual gains of 24% since 1984 vs. 14.8% for the S&P 500. Several times during this peri...
John Schroer has been on a roll. His home team, the Denver Broncos, won the Super Bowl, and his fund, $1.6 billion Invesco Health Sciences, topped all health-sector funds for 1998, returning 43%.
Over the past decade, Merck has seemed unstoppable. The drug giant has led the industry with $26 billion in sales; names like Zocor, Pepcid and Vasotec line America's (and the world's) medicine cab...
With their impeccable pedigrees, blue-chip companies are the royalty of the investing world. But recently, many seem to be in danger of losing their crowns. At a time when the market as a whole is ...
It's a bit like watching the fattest kid in high school waddle up to the starting line and dash off a four-minute mile, leaving all the big jocks gasping for breath. Warner-Lambert Co., once invari...
When we wrote about Warner Lambert (WLA; NYSE, $138.75; 1.1% yield) in this column in April ("Ewe and Your Money: How to Profit from Discoveries"), analysts projected that the stock would hit $120 ...
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