Moody's Investors Service issued a negative opinion on the pharmaceutical industry Thursday, saying drugmaker credit ratings will be under pressure until early 2012 because they won't be able to fully replace revenue from best-sellers that go off-patent.

Federal health experts said Wednesday an updated version of Pfizer's best-selling anti-infection vaccine is safe and effective for infants and toddlers, despite company studies that failed to meet certain goals.

Pfizer said it would pull 1,400 jobs out of New London within two years and move most of them a few miles away to a campus it owns in Groton, Conn., as a cost-cutting measure. It would leave behind the city’s biggest office complex and an adjacent swath of barren land that was cleared of dozens of homes to make room for a hotel, stores and condominiums that were never built.

After drug giant Pfizer Inc. announced that it was opening a new research center here, city officials aggressively moved to acquire surrounding land for an economic development project — triggering an epic fight over eminent domain that reached the U.S. Supreme Court and ended with residents being forced from their homes.

Pfizer's acquisition of Wyeth will add to the pharmaceutical giant's diversity, which over time will help boost the company's stock, CEO Jeff Kindler told CNBC Tuesday.

Pfizer Inc.'s $68 billion purchase of Wyeth will close Thursday after antitrust regulators in the U.S. and Canada cleared the deal.

Women whose breasts became tender after taking hormone replacement therapy had nearly twice the risk of developing breast cancer than women whose breasts did not become tender on the drugs, researchers said.

Stocks ended lower Friday as a dismal jobs report capped a string of disappointing economic reports this week, which cast doubt on the recovery. It was the market's second straight down week in which stocks have lost more than 3 percent.

Stocks tried to push higher Friday as the dollar's retreat helped the market but investors remained worried about the recovery in the wake of some disappointing economic reports.

Stocks opened lower Friday after disappointing reports on jobs and manufacturing.

Stock index futures plunged as September nonfarm payroll declines were far worse than Wall Street estimates.

Iin light of evidence that some drug makers have gone to great lengths to turn scientific articles into marketing vehicles for their products, some influential medical editors are cracking down on industry-financed ghostwriting. And they are getting help from some members of Congress.

The Food and Drug Administration said the makers of promethazine have to warn consumers over the potential risk of tissue injuries including gangrene if the injectable drug is administered incorrectly.

The federal government wrongly froze the assets of an Ohio-based charity it suspected of having ties to the militant Islamic group Hama, a federal judge has ruled.

A growing body of evidence suggests that doctors at some of the nation’s top medical schools have been attaching their names and lending their reputations to scientific papers that were drafted by ghostwriters working for drug companies - articles that were carefully calibrated to help the manufacturers sell more products.