S&P 500
7,401.00
+0.91%
Dow Jones
49,665.70
+0.19%
Nasdaq 100
29,241.00
+2.43%
Russell 2000
2,860.88
+0.82%
FTSE 100
10,263.70
+0.48%
Nikkei 225
63,767.70
+2.68%

Health and Healthcare

Merck Wants Out Of Pfizer’s Shadow

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Stocks:  (MRK)(PFE)

Merck, along with most Big Pharma, wants to get as far away from the blast of Pfizer’s failed cholesterol drug launch as possible.

To that end, MRK announced that it will seek approval for three important drugs for cholesterol, insomnia, and HIV. The company said it would have four more drugs in late stage trials by mid-2007.

Merck has already said that earnings will be flat this year and up only slightly next year. It has also indicated that it will have to cut billions in expenses to bolster profitability. There is the spectre of Vioxx litigation.

The market does not seem to be impressed. Merck’s stock is flat at $44. Since Pfizer’s shares fell almost 10% on the bad news about its cholesterol blockbuster, Merck has managed to keep its shares fairly flat.

But, Wall St. is skeptical now. Pfizer made sure of that. It wants to see drugs out of trials and revenue from them replacing sales lost to generics. And, that may not happen.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Continue Reading

Douglas A. McIntyre |

Pfizer Draw Short Interest (PFE)(MRK)

Short interest in Pfizer rose 6.8 million shares to 51.1 million in December. Market fears that generics will eat away…

Jon C. Ogg |

Expected Upside Gains for Leading Pharmaceutical Companies (JNJ, PFE, AZN, BMY, MRK)

Sales for the big pharmaceutical companies are expected to be hit by pricing pressure in Europe, a lack of urgent…

3 Big Pharma Stocks With Credible Threats to Their Blockbusters
Trey Thoelcke |

3 Big Pharma Stocks With Credible Threats to Their Blockbusters

A pharmaceutical company could face a threat to one of its products for a number of reasons, ranging from an…

Merck’s Spin-Off May Create Operational Risks for the Year Ahead
Jon C. Ogg |

Merck’s Spin-Off May Create Operational Risks for the Year Ahead

Merck finds itself in a position of being an acquirer of sorts at the same time it wants to spin…

Paul Ausick |

Probing for Value in Big Pharmaceutical Stocks (JNJ, PFE, AZN, BMY, MRK)

It now costs about $1 billion to get a new drug to market, or, if a company is unlucky, $1…

Douglas A. McIntyre |

Pfizer Blows It Horn To Doubting Thomases

Pfizer (PFE) met with analysts yesterday and said it was on the road to introducing some blockbuster drugs. Wall St.…

Chris Lange |

Autoimmune Drugs to Drive Big Pharma Higher in Coming Years

Credit Suisse has updated its autoimmune market model and it sees implications for all of the large cap U.S. pharmaceutical…

Jon C. Ogg |

New Mega-Blockbuster Cholesterol Drug Class Faces Make-or-Break FDA Panels

This coming week is likely to be a serious one in the fight against cholesterol. FDA panels are evaluating more…

Paul Ausick |

Drugmakers Merck, Pfizer Eke Out Profit Hikes

Drug giants Merck and Pfizer reported better-than-expected second-quarter 2014 results before markets opened Tuesday morning.

Top Gaining Stocks

Akamai
AKAM • Vol: 21,556,944
Micron Technology
MU • Vol: 65,135,624
Intel
INTC • Vol: 227,504,426
Monster Beverage
MNST • Vol: 15,284,847
Dell Technologies
DELL • Vol: 12,167,525

Top Losing Stocks

Mettler Toledo International
MTD • Vol: 539,266
Motorola Solutions
MSI • Vol: 3,101,643
Expedia
EXPE • Vol: 4,189,786
Coterra Energy
CTRA • Vol: 73,319,495
Fidelity National Information Services
FIS • Vol: 11,468,820