Healthcare

Obesity drug battle enters ‘make it easy’ stage

17 Apr 2025

Effective weight-loss treatments may well become the best-selling drugs ever. Reaching over $100 bln of annual sales, however, probably requires them to be easier for patients to take, and companies to make. Eli Lilly’s promising tablet looks to be a big step in this direction.

Big Pharma has partial immunity from Trump tariffs

9 Apr 2025

The US is threatening to hit the $1.7 trln sector, having initially spared drugmakers like Roche and Eli Lilly. The market’s complexity offers some protection and disruptions may cost lives. This means import levies are likely to be less painful than for car or steelmakers.

Life sciences undergo painful genetic modification

2 Apr 2025

Washington funds $160 bln of R&D a year and attracts more by backing early-stage work. Sweeping budget cuts immediately affect companies such as Becton Dickinson, which is selling its labs unit, and Thermo Fisher. Bigger costs await from delayed therapies or ones never developed.

Brookfield may have to dig deeper to bag Grifols

2 Apr 2025

The Canadian firm is eyeing a $7.5 bln offer for the pharma group, as per Spanish media. The juicier bid could still yield an attractive return and Brookfield’s interest, despite fraud allegations, adds value to the company. That may embolden the seller to play hardball.

Physiotherapy app has some heavy IPO lifting to do

21 Mar 2025

Hinge Health, last valued at $6.2 bln, is trying to shape up how patients recover from injuries. Its finances are getting stronger, with corporate clients and insurers footing bills. User churn is a risk, however, and the company is ill-equipped to fix a limping stock market.

New $7.4 bln opioids deal eases some legal pain

19 Mar 2025

After courts rejected Purdue Pharma’s earlier proposal, the Sackler family is kicking in $1 bln more and dropping a litigation shield. It improves on overly lax bankruptcy proceedings. Painkiller peer Mallinckrodt shows the lingering effects of bad settlements.

GSK drug pipeline requires bigger cash injection

25 Feb 2025

The $77 bln pharma group trades at a chunky valuation discount to rivals like Novartis and AstraZeneca. Little wonder since boss Emma Walmsley faces a patent cliff and a misfiring vaccine unit. Spending more on M&A and research, rather than share buybacks, could help.

Blackstone pushes pharma investors their cash fix

13 Feb 2025

Drug companies like Novartis must constantly add new therapies as old ones gain new competition. Snag is, shareholders want stodgy giants to pay dividends, not splurge on research. A $3 bln deal shows how the buyout shop can tend farmed-out programs, for a hefty price.

Obesity drug giants risk devouring their own lunch

5 Feb 2025

Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are delivering bumper sales thanks to demand for weight-loss drugs. But faster-than-expected take-up will also mean fewer people with diabetes. That will hurt growth in the two groups’ core businesses, with $53 bln of sales.

Ping An’s tech dreams may yet exit intensive care

16 Jan 2025

The $110 bln insurer’s days of spinning off web-based ventures to help boost its value are long over. But a quirky special dividend is giving it back majority control of beaten-down but cash-rich Ping An Healthcare just as the online medical firm’s fortunes look set to improve.

UnitedHealth lacks antidote for chronic anger

15 Jan 2025

The $500 bln US medical conglomerate’s relentless growth ostensibly aimed to reduce costs for patients, but conveniently expanded its market dominance and bottom line. With consumer and political dissatisfaction hardening, boss Andrew Witty will struggle to be part of the cure.

J&J’s $15 bln depression deal eases pharma blues

13 Jan 2025

The $344 bln healthcare firm has spent years dealing with lawsuits and pruning assets. Meanwhile, novel drug developers’ stocks have been stuck in purgatory for a decade, making them look cheap. For giants like Johnson & Johnson in need of new products an M&A solution is obvious.

Big Booze speeds towards low-growth tobacco status

7 Jan 2025

The US surgeon general wants health warnings on alcohol bottles. Declining drinking rates have already shrunk the valuations of brewers like Carlsberg to 12 times forward earnings, nearing tobacco levels. Higher-rated spirits groups like $70 bln Diageo may have further to fall.

Novo Nordisk weight-loss blow is warning for Lilly

20 Dec 2024

Shares of the $368 bln Ozempic maker fell up to 27% after trials of a critical medication disappointed. That will make it easier for upstarts like AstraZeneca to muscle into an increasingly competitive obesity market. It’s potentially bad news for market leader Eli Lilly too.

Obesity giants will begin $80 bln M&A face-off

17 Dec 2024

Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk will need to invest the war chests they are amassing from sales of weight-loss drugs. They could snap up rivals like Zealand Pharma, or forge into new areas, say by buying autoimmune player Argenx. Pressure to do deals raises the risk of overpaying.

Bausch + Lomb buyout gets blurry beyond $7 bln

13 Dec 2024

Private equity firm TPG is interested in the eye care company, whose parent’s $20 bln of debt makes it a willing seller. A new owner will struggle to find big costs to cut and to exit at a higher valuation multiple. Such constraints make it harder to see clear to a 20% return.

AstraZeneca lacks good medicine for Chinese limbo

13 Dec 2024

Executives at the $205 bln drugmaker have been detained by Beijing, hitting its shares. One way for CEO Pascal Soriot to ringfence China risk from the rest of AstraZeneca might be to list or spin off the unit. Yet that might just highlight fresh reasons to mark down the stock.

UnitedHealth tragedy opens deep healthcare wounds

5 Dec 2024

The murder of insurance boss Brian Thompson drew a slew of callous responses, including on a company Facebook post. Industry profit is rising in a nation spending double its peers on healthcare for worse outcomes. Policy ideas are weak, but political risk is amping up.

Drugmakers brace for US political side effects

5 Dec 2024

Donald Trump’s health agency nominee, Robert Kennedy, brings dangerous views on vaccines as well as skepticism about sky-high medicine prices. In this week’s Viewsroom, Breakingviews columnists discuss the impact on giants like Novo Nordisk and how other countries might react.

European pharma’s growth prescription: pivot to US

28 Nov 2024

Novartis, Novo Nordisk and regional rivals lost $86 bln in value over concerns about tariffs and other possible measures by President-elect Donald Trump. Stateside M&A and manufacturing moves could ease the pain and boost revenue. But hopping across the pond will mean paying up.