there seems to be some heavy resistance around these level with a lot of potential upside.

FDA Approves 19 New U.S. Drugs, Fewest Since '83; Glaxo Leads

By Justin Blum

Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved 19 new drugs in 2007, the fewest in 24 years, after drugmakers focused on developing uses for existing products.

"The hurdle has been raised, there is no question about it,'' said Jean-Pierre Garnier, Glaxo's chief executive officer, in an Oct. 24 conference call with analysts. ``We are working on 25 launches over the next three years. Some of them will be delayed that probably wouldn't have been delayed if we had those 25 products even two years ago.''

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a2MOCNVDHucs&refer=home

END of Report.

As to the bribery issue it appears that 2,200 companies from some 40 countries are suspected of colluding with Saddam's regime to bilk the humanitarian program of $1.8 billion.
Anyone who believes anything will come of any investigation with so many companies involved is IMHO living in dream land.
I would think the number of companies that went down the legal moral route are far less than those who didn't.

The bottom line is that to get any sort of deal with a corrupt country (and there are very few that are not) bribery is often a companies best bargaining chip. On a lesser scale if you want to deal with so called none corrupt countries it's called incentives, corruption by a lesser name.

The Authorities will make a lot of noise and spend a lot of our money, then everything will just fade away.
Cynicism rules.

Looks like a base is formed and we're heading for a bounce. A good share in difficult times like now.

Might be worth puuting a limit order in for 1150, it seems a good support and was hit yesterday

Glaxo has around 30 drugs in the later stages of development which may hopefully counter worries about patent expiries. Glaxo is also a major US$ earner and may improve earnings in Sterling terms should the latter weaken against the US$ this year. Yield should be solid 4%+ at current sp of 1184p

The base is now much clearer. Anyone in the party? Maybe not..

Not a good picture of health imo.

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - US billionaire Warren Buffett has invested significantly in European pharmaceutical majors GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi-Aventis, a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission has revealed.

As of December 31, Buffett, through his holding company Berkshire Hathaway, owned 1.51 mln American Depository Receipts of Glaxo, valued at 76.1 mln usd, and 3.6 mln ADRs of Sanofi-Aventis, valued at 162.5 mln usd.

Since January 2, Glaxo has issued a profit warning and its shares have fallen 11.5 pct from 1,270 pence to 1,124 pence by 9.26 am today.

Shares in Sanofi-Aventis have slid by 14.7 pct from 62.28 eur on January 2, to 53.1 eur at 9.32 am today.

The trades, however, represent a very small part of Buffett's total investments, worth a total of 68.8 bln usd, for the three months ending Dec 31 that are covered by the filing.

Investments included a stake worth 7.9 bln usd in American Express and 4.1 bln usd holding in Johnson & Johnson.

Strange re the drop today. I would have thought the news was far more positive than negative. 15 mill buy just gone through. No doubt an RNS will be forthcoming.

probably a general reaction to weakness of Wall Street

Could possibly be part of a buyback Greekman or reaction to further anticipated dollar weakness, though a good share to accumulate on any weakness

Probably foolish but just bought some of these. If they're good enough for Buffett....

You and me both.Incredible cash generator and yield well over 4% - happy to suffer some short term volatility for medium term gain...at least that is the theory.

I'd like to see us test the 10 again and then may be tempted to jump in. The beast is so large it takes a long time to change course and steer in a favourably direction. The times for pharms is coming again however. Just as EUR/USD hits new highs today nearing 1.54 it won't be long before the dollar will come back and kick ass. Then you've got a winner here with a strong dollar earner.

Glaxo
ING Wholesale Banking has rated Europe's largest drugmaker a buy in new coverage saying the company may benefit from the appointment of Andrew Witty as chief executive officer.

GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Europe's largest drugmaker, and Pfizer Inc. won a federal appeals court ruling shielding them from liability in lawsuits over the adequacy of warning labels on antidepressants approved by U.S. regulators.

For full info see http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=adakuLNpxXQo&refer=germany

Details about half way down page.

From RTT News.

RTT News said Tuesday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved their bowel drug Entereg to help patients regain gastrointestinal (GI) function earlier following bowel resection surgery.
http://www.rttnews.com/Content/BreakingNews.aspx?Node=B1&Id=611193%20&Category=Breaking%20News

Bloomberg.

Europe's largest drugmaker (gsk) will sell more than 4 billion pounds of its top-selling Advair asthma inhaler, outgoing Chief Executive Officer Jean-Pierre Garnier told shareholders at the company's annual meeting.

Genmab A/S (OMX: GEN) and GlaxoSmithKline (LSE and NYSE: GSK) announced today positive top-line results from an interim analysis of the Phase III pivotal study evaluating ofatumumab (HuMax-CD20(R)) to treat two groups of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients with high unmet medical need. At the interim analysis, the study met the primary endpoint in both populations and the results from the secondary endpoints also support the primary endpoint.

Should put the SP up a bit on opening.

Goes to show.
A real nice result re ofatumumab (multi billions) with figures twice what was required for minimum level acceptance, yet SP opens lower.
Yet another example of the global drag down of the markets bearing little reality (people will always need drugs) link to any individual company.
DOW well down, everything down.

Generic epilepsy drugs not interchangeable
by Michael Woodhead.
Patients with well-controlled epilepsy should not be switched to generic drugs because they may face loss of seizure control even with supposedly bio equivalent drugs, US neurologists say.
The Survey was sponsored by GSK so it does not have quite the sway of a completely independent one, but if it is excepted it could change the way that some generic drugs are looked at. Presumably similar surveys are conducted re other generic drugs effectiveness against none generic.
If not no doubt the big drug conglomerates will be jumping on the bandwagon, although as we all know with generic drugs being so much cheaper many can only afford such drugs.
Interesting all the same.
http://www.6minutes.com.au/articles/z1/view.asp?id=202221