Drugs, Drugmaker | featured news

Two pivotal trials of a Johnson & Johnson experimental HIV drug found it worked as well as an existing drug, with fewer side effects but also with nearly twice as many patients failing to respond to treatment.

Drugmaker Pfizer will cut 6,000, or 18 percent, of jobs at its 78 manufacturing plants over the next five years as it consolidates operations after  last year's purchase of  Wyeth.

Health care giant Johnson & Johnson is jumping into the increasingly hot vaccine business by taking an 18 percent stake in Dutch biotechnology company Crucell NV and focusing more on preventive medicine....

Belgian drugs, chemicals and plastics maker Solvay said on Monday it would sell its drugs unit to U.S. partner Abbott Laboratories for 4.5 billion euros ($6.61 billion) in cash and reinvest in chemicals and plastics.

J&J agreed to buy an 18.4% stake in Elan for $1 billion and acquire the rights to much of the Irish biotech company's research into drugs for Alzheimer's disease.

Drugmakers Merck & Co. and Schering-Plough Corp. are planning to merge under the name Merck in a stock-and-cash deal worth about $41.1 billion.