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Sebelius on Vaccines

24 Nov 2009

Discussing whether a new $487M investment from the government will help speed up the production of the most important vaccines, with Kathy Sebelius, Health & Human Services secretary and CNBC's Mike Huckman.

The New Formula for Faster Vaccines

24 Nov 2009

Novartis is opening on Tuesday the country's first plant to produce flu vaccines using cell cultures. These vaccines are faster, better and cheaper to make than egg-based methods, reports CNBC's Mike Huckman.

Novartis Opens 1st US Plant for Flu Vaccine

24 Nov 2009

Cholesterol Drug Battle: Niaspan vs. Zetia 16 Nov 2009
Abbott Laboratories' Niaspan beat Merck's Zetia in a new study. CNBC's Mike Huckman has the details.

Cardiologist Grades Cholesterol Drug Study

16 Nov 2009

Abbott Laboratories' Niaspan beat Merck's Zetia in a new study. Dr. Steven Nissen, chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at The Cleveland Clinic, shares his reaction with CNBC's Mike Huckman.

Merck's Cholesterol Drugs Under Pressure

16 Nov 2009

A new study is putting Merck's cholesterol drugs under pressure today, reports CNBC's Mike Huckman, with Ken Frazier, Merck Global Human Health president.

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Nov.24

9:15 AM ET

Monday, 24 Nov 2008

Pharma Updates And What You Need To Know

Posted By:Mike Huckman

Sectors:Health Care Equipment and Services | Health Care | Pharmaceuticals

As the market remains focused on Citi and the President-elect's midday cabinet announcement there are a few newsworthy things going on in biopharmaland.

Johnson & Johnson [JNJ Loading... () ] is buying Omrix Biopharmaceuticals[OMRI Loading... () ] for $438 million in cash. And Bristol-Myers Squibb [BMY Loading... () ] has moved forward on an option to buy into an experimental drug at Exelixis (EXEL), entitling the baby biotech to a $20 million cash payment from BMY.

Genentech [DNA Loading... () ] announced positive results from a big study on Avastin for breast cancer. The biotech giant hopes to use the data to win full out FDA approval of the drug for that type of cancer.

Meantime, mark December 4th on your calendar. Dow component Merck [MRK Loading... () ] announced this morning that's when it will hold a conference call to provide new financial guidance. It's become standard operating procedure for the drugmaker to do that a week ahead of its analyst/investor meeting.

Coincidentally, or maybe not, MRK's cholesterol drug partner Schering-Plough[SGP Loading... () ] is holding its Research and Development Day with Wall Street today. In his opening remarks Chairman and CEO Fred Hassan, among many other things, touched on the economy. "Our sector is more resilient than most, but we're not immune," he said. I'm at the company's HQ in Kenilworth, NJ to do a live interview with Hassan around 1:30 pm ET on "Power Lunch."

Finally, a note about the front-page article about Pfizer's [PFE Loading... () ] Viagra for athletes in "The New York Times" on Sunday. It's a good "talk about" story for the water-cooler, but will have little, if any, material impact on Viagra sales.

Far down in the piece it mentioned side effects including "priapism." But the reporter/editors apparently assumed readers would know what that means. It's the side effect rattled off in impotence drug commercials that often draws chuckles and provides comedians with stand-up routine material about erections lasting four hours or more.