Month: May 2014

Pfizer Inc reported revenue well below Wall Street expectations on falling sales of generic medicines, underscoring its interest in pursuing a $106 billion bid for rival AstraZeneca to promote new business growth. Pfizer said on Monday it hoped its sweetened offer for AstraZeneca, which was made on Friday, would help the British drugmaker "engage with Pfizer and enter into discussions relating to a possible combination of the two companies." AstraZeneca quickly rejected the sweetened bid, saying it "substantially" undervalued the company. Pfizer said total first-quarter revenue fell 9 percent to $11.35 billion, which was $730 million below Wall Street expectations.

U.S. stock index futures fell on Monday on concern China's economy continued to lose momentum and as pro-Russian separatists ambushed Ukrainian forces, escalating a conflict that has kept global markets on tenterhooks recently. China's manufacturing sector contracted for a fourth consecutive month in April, adding to concerns over the health of the world's second-largest economy. Pro-Russian separatists ambushed Ukrainian forces on Monday, triggering heavy fighting on the outskirts of the rebel stronghold of Slaviansk a day after a Ukrainian police station in Odessa was stormed. Angela Merkel's spokesman said Germany believes a referendum planned by pro-Russian separatists in the eastern city of Donetsk next week would violate Ukraine's constitution and make the situation there even worse.

By Christina Farr SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc is building a team of senior medical technology executives, raising hackles in the biotechnology community and offering a hint of what the iPhone maker may be planning for its widely expected iWatch and other wearable technology. Over the past year, Apple has snapped up at least half a dozen prominent experts in biomedicine, according to LinkedIn profile changes. One prominent researcher moved two weeks ago, and Apple is recruiting other medical professionals and hardware experts, although the number of hires is not clear, said two people familiar with the hiring, who declined to be named. Much of the hiring is in sensor technology, an area Chief Executive Tim Cook singled out last year as primed "to explode." Industry insiders say the moves telegraph a vision of monitoring everything from blood-sugar levels to nutrition, beyond the fitness-oriented devices now on the market.

LONDON (AP) — The World Health Organization says the spread of polio is an international public health emergency that threatens to infect other countries with the crippling disease.