CVS shares plunge after losing drug contracts

The drugstore and benefit management company saw its shares fall more than 20 per cent after it announced the loss of $3.7bn of prescription management contracts for 2010

• Lex: Takeda / Amylin
• Shire’s drug sales offset Adderall decline

Ultrasis posts first pre-tax profit

The interactive healthcare software maker reports a 59% increase in revenues to £4.2m due to gains from its computer program designed to treat depression

David Pilling: Roll up for Japan’s medical mystery tour

With a smaller slice of a shrinking domestic pie, Japanese pharmaceutical companies have had to take the fight abroad. The country’s track record outside manufacturing does not bode well, but it is too soon to dismiss the industry, writes David Pilling

ViiV vows joint venture will help fight HIV

The head of the pioneering tie-up between GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer predicts the company can operate for at least five years without new funding from shareholders

J&J to axe 7% of jobs in global restructure

Johnson & Johnson will cut up to 7% of its 117,000 employees by 2011 as it reduces costs in an effort to weather the global downturn and increase spending on new products.

Pfizer backs US health reform

Jeffrey Kindler, chief executive of Pfizer, expressed confidence that US healthcare reform would be approved by the end of this year, and praised the Senate finance committee’s latest draft in spite of the extra costs it would impose on his business

Shire’s drug sales offset Adderall decline

Falling sales of its now off-patent drug Adderall XR continue to weigh on the speciality pharmaceutical group, although strong growth in sales of new drugs are poised to compensate

AZ to settle US marketing case

AstraZeneca is poised to pay more than $500m to settle allegations in the US of marketing abuses of its second-most important drug