Abbott Laboratories has settled U.S. patent litigation over its blockbuster cholesterol pill TriCor in a deal that allows generic versions of the treatment in early 2011.

Generics are hot commodities these days–and the following two stories illustrate this fact. First, GlaxoSmithKline has finalized its buyout of a stake in South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare Holdings. Aiming to diversify into selling copycats of its own meds, Glaxo decided to take an even larger stake of Aspen than…

Sanofi-Aventis has confirmed that it’s cutting back on sales, but no official word on just how many positions got the axe during yesterday’s phone-call layoff marathon. “[A]ll I can tell you at this time is that this is an ongoing process,” a spokesman wrote to BNet Pharma and Pharmalot…

As Pfizer lays off and shuts down in the U.S. and Europe, it will be beefing up big-time in Japan. Tapped today to lead Pfizer Japan, Ichiro Umeda told a press briefing that no jobs will be cut in his country as Pfizer absorbs Wyeth. The company needs those…

The U.S. Supreme Court cast a gimlet eye on some of Merck’s arguments in a shareholder lawsuit over Vioxx. According to the Wall Street Journal , Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer called out a seeming contradiction in Merck’s case: The company argues that a.) Investors should have sued…

Drugmakers, the taxman cometh. As if pharma didn’t have enough bogeymen to worry about, right? PricewaterhouseCoopers is warning that as companies do the things they need to do to combat stagnant sales in the developed world, generic competition, pricing pressures, et al, they’ll be creating bigger tax bills for…

On this World AIDS Day we are filled with both hope and concern. Hope because significant progress has been made towards universal access. New HIV infections have dropped. Fewer children are born with HIV. And more than 4 million people are on treatment.

Original Source of Message on the occasion…

The National AIDS Fund (NAF) and Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY) announced their intention to launch “Positive Charge”, a new multiyear initiative aimed at helping to break down the barriers that prevent people living with HIV from receiving HIV care, treatment and necessary support. The initiative is slated to launch…

Bayer Schering Pharma AG, Germany, is progressing with the development of florbetaben to support Alzheimer diagnosis. On the occasion of the 95th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), the company announced the enrollment of first patients in an international clinical Phase III trial…

Ratiopharm has inspired quite a tussle among potential bidders. Over the holiday weekend, the news broke that ex-chairman Claudio Albrecht had joined forces with the private equity arm of Sweden’s Wallenberg family to lodge a bid for the German drugmaker. Albrecht and that private-equity fund, EQT, would be competing…