Editors' note: An earlier version of this article appeared without including the news about the temporary ruling. The Fool regrets this oversight.
AstraZeneca
Let’s look at AstraZeneca’s situation in more detail. First, Teva Pharmaceutical
All isn't completely lost on that front. AstraZeneca has a lawsuit against Teva, and if it wins the trial set to begin in January, it'll get to recover the damages it suffered and then some. This isn't the first time Teva has made an "at risk" launch -- it made a major launch of generic versions of Wyeth's
On to AstraZeneca's second woe, which came with the release of its results from three phase 3 trials testing its lung-cancer treatment candidate Zactima. The drug seems to work well in combination with Sanofi-Aventis'
Going two-for-three might have made this a positive day for the drugmaker, but the third trial turned out to be a downer, too. In a head-to-head trial as a monotherapy, Zactima failed to best current cancer treatment Tarceva from OSI Pharmaceuticals
All in all, it was a pretty bad day for AstraZeneca, and its stock deserved every bit of the thrashing it got. Losing heartburn medication Prilosec, beta blocker Toprol-XL, and now Pulmicort Respules to generic competition wouldn't be so bad if the company wasn't having issues with potential blockbusters in the pipeline. I think the downside risk is mostly priced in at this point, but don't expect much growth from AstraZeneca unless it's able to pick up a cheap development-stage drugmaker.