Author: PharmaTimes

Dutch company, Akzo Nobel, is “poised for a return to growth over the next few years,” the company’s chairman, Hans Wijers, said yesterday. Although he expects 2005 to continue to be challenging, the firm is preparing to make this year a turning point for growth.

Bristol-Myers Squibb has confirmed that it plans to divest its US and Canadian consumer medicines business and says it will be contacting prospective buyers over the coming weeks.

It is “highly unlikely” that Mylan Laboratories’ proposed $4 billion dollar purchase of King Pharmaceuticals will go through at the current price and terms by the February 28 deadline, because of King’s potential restatement of its financial results, the former company revealed yesterday.

In 2003, the pace of health spending growth slowed for the first time in seven years, according to the latest report from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Office of the Actuary, which shows that total health expenditure increased at just under 8% in the twelve-month period to $1.7 trillion dollars, versus 9% growth in 2002.

The world’s largest pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, has received the wrath of the US Food and Drug Administration over a series of advertisements for its Celebrex (celecoxib) and Bextra (valdecoxib) painkillers, which the agency has deemed misleading.