Online pharmacy Zur Rose Group plans to raise up to around 230 million Swiss francs ($236.6 million) in an initial share sale, the Swiss company
said on Thursday, with the cash to help grow operations including its DocMorris unit in Germany.
The IPO, with a price range of 120 francs to 140 francs per share, would value the company at between 780 million francs and 870 million francs, Zur Rose said.
Swiss pharmaceuticals group Novartis says net income fell 15 percent in the first quarter, as it continued to adjust to generic competition for its Gleevec leukemia drug and stopped work on a hoped-for treatment for heart failure.
The Basel-based company said net income dropped to $1.7 billion in the quarter, compared to $2.01 in the year-earlier period. It cited a $200 million charge to discontinue RLX030, which failed to pass tests in trials as a treatment for acute heart failure.
Novartis expects growth in China’s pharmaceuticals market to accelerate as the nation’s health authorities expedite approvals for new medicines and increase reimbursement. The Chinese pharmaceutical market may exceed $300 billion in sales by 2020, Chief Executive Officer Joe Jimenez said in an interview in Geneva on Tuesday. That will happen as regulators in the country push to offer new drugs to sick patients who’ve traditionally not had access to the world’s groundbreaking meds. The country is now the world’s second-biggest pharmaceutical market, behind the U.S.
Nine months after the historic referendum in which the UK population voted to leave the European Union, the UK government has at last served notice to quit.
Theresa May yesterday signed the letter that will formally begin the UK’s departure from the European Union, starting a process which will eventually make clear how the country will trade with the EU and the rest of the world.
Since the Brexit vote last summer, the UK life sciences sector have been seeking answers as how it can trade and collaborate with Europe, and continue to flourish as a centre for science and innovation.
Drug company Merck said Tuesday it stopped a clinical trial of an experimental Alzheimer’s drug because it wasn’t helping patients, the latest setback in the pharmaceutical industry’s quest to find a better treatment for the brain disorder.
An outside committee monitoring the study of more than 2,000 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s concluded there was "virtually no chance of finding a positive clinical effect" of the drug, verubecestat, Merck said. The study, which was due to be completed around midyear, was testing whether verubecestat slowed declines in patients’ cognition and daily functioning compared with a placebo.
Pharma industry leaders, including Novartis CEO Joe Jimenez and Merck & Co. chief Kenneth Frazier, got their marching orders from President Donald Trump on Tuesday morning. Lower your prices, deliver "better" innovation and "move your companies back" to the U.S.
In a "pharma" meeting in the Oval Office, the President told executives from companies that they have done a "terrific job over the years" but that prices for drugs must come down.
"Our trade policy will prioritize that foreign countries pay their fair share for U.S.-manufactured drugs, so our drug companies have greater financial resources to accelerate development of new cures, and I think that’s so important," Trump said.
Johnson & Johnson will buy Swiss drugmaker Actelion in a $30 billion deal that both secures promising research and bolsters the product portfolio controlled by the U.S. health care giant.
The deal between the world’s biggest producer of healthcare goods and Actelion, a leader in medicines treating high blood pressure, will create a new Swiss-listed firm called R&D NewCo focusing on the research and development of new drugs, the two companies said in a joint statement.
The U.S. conglomerate will then buy Actelion’s seven drugs that are currently on the market and two potential treatments in late-stage testing. The acquisition gives J&J access to the Swiss group’s line-up of high-price, high-margin medicines for rare diseases, helping it diversify its drug portfolio as its biggest product.
Novartis may spin off its struggling Alcon eye care business and is to launch a share buyback programme worth up to $5 billion, the Swiss drugmaker said on Wednesday in reporting fourth-quarter results that lagged market expectations.
Its sales were flat in the fourth quarter while posting a $120 million operating loss, forcing a critical look at whether to sell eye care division. "We’ve not ruled anything out, all options are on the table," Chief Executive Joe Jimenez said on a results news conference call.
