More than US$31 billion was on Friday knocked off the value of Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company and maker of Viagra, after doubts surfaced over the safety of one of its key drugs.
The revelation comes only weeks after rival Merck decided to withdraw its painkiller Vioxx, from the same family of drugs, because of similar side-effects fears.
News that one of Pfizer's main drugs, Celebrex, used to combat arthritis, could cause heart problems emerged on a dark day for the world's drug giants. British pharmaceuticals group AstraZeneca yesterday suffered its third setback in two months as a clinical trial showed its lung cancer drug Iressa failed to help patients live longer. The news saw the value of the company, one of the UK's largest corporations, drop ?2.8 billion in value yesterday.
There had been hopes that the drug offered a breakthrough in cancer treatment, but a study of just under 1,700 patients showed that it appeared to have no significant life-prolonging effects.
The blow follows recent news that AstraZeneca's drug, Exanta, used to treat strokes, had been blocked by the US regulatory authority.
Its anti-cholesterol drug, Crestor, has also faced stiff criticism from US officials. These setbacks have called into the question the future of AstraZeneca's chief executive, Sir Tom McKillop.
In New York Pfizer's shares plummeted after it said trials of Celebrex as a treatment for cancer rather than arthritis showed it more than doubled the risk of heart problems.
Celebrex comes from the family of drugs known as Cox-2 inhibitors which includes Vioxx. Cox-2 is a protein which is believed to cause inflammation of the joints.
Both Celebrex and Vioxx are anti-inflammatories and were launched in the US market five years ago backed by mammoth advertising campaigns.
Celebrex is one of Pfizer's biggest selling drugs, accounting for sales of US$1.9 billion last year. The US group also has a second newer drug in a similar area called Bextra which was worth US$687 million in sales last year.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day