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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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Pharma's Market

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Dec.29

9:13 AM ET

Monday, 29 Dec 2008

Are Merck's Dog Days Over?

Posted By:Mike Huckman

Topics:Stock Market | Corporate News | Pharmaceuticals

Sectors:Pharmaceuticals

Companies:Merck & Co Inc

CNBC.com
Here at CNBC we've got a team of folks who compile market stats and regularly send them out via blast emails. They slice and dice the stuff every which way, and while it's very helpful and insightful for a lot of our staffers, I confess I usually instantly delete the messages since much of it doesn't pertain to my beat.

But for some reason last Friday evening — maybe because I was bored on the train ride home and I don't pass the time playing "Brickbreaker" — I opened and paged down one of the stock-stat emails.

It came as no surprise that General Motors is the December dog of the Dow — down more than 30 percent so far this month.

But I was definitely caught off guard when I saw that Merck (Merck!) is the best performing Dow component in December, with less than three trading days left. MRK shares [MRK Loading... () ] are up eight-and-a-half percent.

Could the drugmaker's annual analyst meeting earlier this month have been a catalyst? Or did investors simply decide the stock's cheap with a high dividend yield?

Check back later today when I will reveal the best-performing Nasdaq 100 stock year-to-date. The index is down 42 percent in 2008. But the top stock is up nearly 27 percent. Hint: It's a biopharma stock.

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