Wheeling and Dealing at Wyeth (WYE.DL)

Wheeling and Dealing at Wyeth

Friday was a particularly impressive day for pharmaceutical giant Wyeth (NYSE: WYE ) , as shareholders received welcome news on multiple fronts. The company pulled off a strategic acquisition and announced preparations to submit a New Drug Application (NDA) to the FDA. In response, shares rose 2.4% for the day.

Wyeth acquired Haptogen, a biopharmaceutical company that specializes in the discovery of therapeutic antibodies. Among other things, Haptogen has studied cancer-fighting treatments involving the use of antibodies in sharks. This is a key acquisition for Wyeth, bolstering its research and development arm. Other large-cap drug makers have recently made similar acquisitions to strengthen their R&D pipelines, including Bristol-Myers Squibb's (NYSE: BMY ) buyout of Adnexus Therapeutics, and AstraZeneca's (NYSE: AZN ) purchase of MedImmune.

In NDA news, Wyeth said that its drug candidate bazedoxifene/conjugated estrogens yielded positive results in relieving symptoms of hot flashes in postmenopausal women. The results, demonstrating the promise of this hormone therapy in phase 3 clinical trials, have led the company to expect that it will submit an NDA to the FDA in the second quarter of 2008. The company has already received an approvable letter from the FDA for the use of bazedoxifene to prevent postmenopausal osteoporosis.

Wyeth recently posted year-over-year sales growth for nine of its 10 top-selling drugs. Now it appears that one of the strongest companies in this sector is getting even stronger.

Check out:

The Steve Jobs Betrayal
You may already know that in the final year of his life, Jobs revealed a stunning betrayal — and told his biographer, "I will spend my last dying breath... and every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank to right this wrong." What was it that made Jobs so irate — and why could it make a few in-the-know investors some major profits over the coming months and years?

Enter your email address below to find out what made Jobs so enraged!

Comments from our Foolish Readers

Help us keep this a respectfully Foolish area! This is a place for our readers to discuss, debate, and learn more about the Foolish investing topic you read about above. Help us keep it clean and safe. If you believe a comment is abusive or otherwise violates our Fool's Rules, please report it via the Report this Comment icon found on every comment.