Now it’s official. Rumors about sanofi-aventis’s (Paris) desire to purchase Genzyme (Cambridge, MA) have stirred speculation for weeks. The French drugmaker laid its cards on the table on Sunday by publishing its offer letter to Henri Termeer, Genzyme’s CEO. Sanofi proposed to pay $69 in cash per Genzyme share, or a total of about $18.5 billion, to acquire the biologics manufacturer. On Friday, Genzyme shares closed at $67.62.

Termeer’s response came this morning. It can be summed up in two words: nothing doing. Read more »

Pharmaceutical companies sometimes explain their unimpressive pipelines by saying that it’s become harder to discover and develop new drugs. Believing that the low-hanging fruit has been picked already, manufacturers are focusing on serving small patient populations. But a new paper suggests that the industry may be overlooking the potential of a particular class of drugs to treat tens of millions of patients. Read more »

Have you ever allowed yourself what you thought was ample time to drive somewhere, only to be delayed by a construction crew that was repairing the roads? Obviously, things don’t always work out as we plan them. Judging by its latest announcement about its facility ameliorations, Genzyme (Cambridge, MA) must have learned this lesson, too. Read more »

The welter of recent product recalls (and phantom recalls) initially got the US Congress talking about the adequacy of Johnson and Johnson’s (J&J, New Brunswick, NJ) manufacturing and quality-control operations. But lawmakers soon began asking questions about our line of defense against potentially harmful products: the US Food and Drug Administration. Read more »

In the current economic slump, generic versions of branded drugs have become a bigger thorn in innovators’ sides than before. To safeguard their profits for just a bit longer, many companies have paid generic-drug manufacturers to delay the introduction of their products to the market. US and European authorities have called these arrangements anticompetitive, though, and events on Capitol Hill last week indicate that they might not be tolerated much longer. Read more »

Publicity about substandard or contaminated products usually lights a fire under pharmaceutical companies, which then race to address their compliance problems. But a new US Food and Drug Administration inspection report shows that, despite a stream of product recalls and a Congressional investigation, Johnson & Johnson (J&J, New Brunswick, NJ) has not gotten its house in order yet. And the company’s latest problems conceivably could make things hot for one of its partners. Read more »

Last week, the pharmaceutical industry struck a blow against sexism. In May, a US District Court found Novartis (Basel) guilty of gender discrimination. Novartis and the law firm that represented a class of 5600 female employees reached a settlement agreement that became public last Wednesday. The terms of the agreement seem to indicate that the company is making a legitimate effort to treat its employees fairly. Read more »

Management at Novartis (Basel) may be looking for a pill to combat employee-induced headaches. Not even two months after the company lost a class-action lawsuit that alleged discrimination against female workers, a federal appeals court ruled that the company’s sales representatives are entitled to overtime pay. Read more »

The calamitous and ongoing Deepwater Horizon oil spill has brought pollution to the center of the public consciousness again. The environmental effects of the petroleum industry’s operations have been the subject of public scrutiny for years. The current spill has understandably focused regulators’ attention on oil pollution, but we should remember that other sectors, including the pharmaceutical industry, can sometimes release pollutants into our waterways, too. Read more »

The recession has been particularly tough for pharmaceutical-industry employees. During the first five months of 2009, 51,034 of them lost their jobs. Only the government and retail sectors laid off more workers during that period. Given these somber figures, many in the industry probably hoped for a positive omen in the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’s monthly jobs report, which was released on Friday.

Read more »