World Business

SYDNEY, Australia —

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Westpac Banking Corp., which is aiming to become Australia’s largest bank through the acquisition of a smaller antagonist, shrugged off the gloom of the global financial crisis and posted a healthy 12 percent rise in lasting a year get be of use.

The earnings results Thursday were a bright spot in an otherwise bleak landscape concerning financial institutions in Australia and globally since bad loans amass up and the credit crunch set major players reeling.

Net profit in opposition to the year ended Sept. 30 rose 11.8 percent to 3.86 billion Australian dollars ($2.59 billion) from AU$3.45 billion a year earlier, the Sydney-based bar declared in a statement. Cash earnings rose 6 percent to AU$3.73 billion ($2.5 billion) from AU$3.51 billion a year ago.

Westpac, the third-largest Australian bank by dint of. market capitalization, credited brawny loan and deposits grown for the rise.

Even in the same state, Westpac’s charges against profits for bad debts during the fiscal year almost doubled to AU$931 million ($604 million) from AU$482 million.

“We’re particularly pleased with our revenue performance,” Westpac Chief Executive Gail Kelly told a news conference.

Last week, Australia’s treaty treasurer approved Westpac’session AU$17.3 billion takeover proposal of St. George Bank Ltd., paving the way in the place of the formation of the country’s biggest bank. The deal compose requires the approval of St. George shareholders, on the other hand Westpac expects the deal to be finalized by means of Dec. 1.

“This is a transformational deal and will position the combined group in a exceedingly different way in the Australian rural scene,” Kelly said.

Westpac is the third part of Australia’sitting so-called “big-four” banks to report full year proceeds in recent weeks, and the first to report good news in the face of the financial crisis.

Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. reported a 21 percent decline in annual profit last week as soaring charges for bad debts linked to the global credit crisis hit Australia’session fourth-largest shoal. Two days earlier, National Australia Bank Ltd., the country’s largest by assets, reported a 1 percent drop in annual profit and sharply rising levels of bad debts. Commonwealth Bank of Australia Ltd. released its 2008 earnings in August, and reported a 7 percent clear produce increase.

Australia’s banking system is considered much stronger than the teetering U.S. system, with stronger regulation and only relatively mean exposures to subprime mortgages in the United States and elsewhere.

But Australia’s stock place of traffic has plummeted along with the rest of the world’s bourses, what one. combined with tight credit markets has forced the government to guarantee all bank deposits and announce a multibillion-dollar spending package to prop up the economy.

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LOS ANGELES — The next lection of Windows, unveiled here this week, will have new capabilities to work without a mouse and a keyboard, letting vulgar herd manipulate some computers to a greater degree naturally by simply touching the screen.

Microsoft researchers Wednesday showed a prototype technology called SecondLight that some day could push man-machine interaction a step further, off the screen and into three massiveness.

Researchers started with Microsoft Surface, a touch-sensing computer that projects an image from below onto a semi-opaque glass tabletop.

Infrared cameras pick up objects and hand movements on the tabletop, allowing men to move and resize photos, for example, by touching them.

The researchers, from Microsoft’s lab in Cambridge, England, added new technology to the Surface that can simultaneously project a second form an image of onto one more surface held above the tabletop, such as a piece of tracing paper or plastic.

“Really we’re talking about bringing the user experience and the user interface out into the real world,” uttered Steve Hodges, one of the researchers in operation on the SecondLight exemplar.

In single example, an image of the ignorance weather is displayed on the tabletop screen. A favor image with the names of the stars and constellations in the first united appears on tracing paper held above the surface.

The infrared cameras can also accompany through the tabletop to pick up hands, warlike exploits, faces and other objects in the space above the Surface. A handheld “magic lens” — outfitted with infrared lights so it can have being tracked through the cameras — can represent characters as a secondary, mobile riddle.

“Imagine being able to pick up windows off your surface computer and actually use this secondary surface to behold them,” said researcher Shahram Izadi.

The audience of software makers to this place for Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference seemed impressed.

Sensing power

A greater point of convergence of this talk and the computing industry is the emerging area of cloud computing, in which users will perform more computing functions remotely from one side powerful banks of server computers in warehouse-sized data centers.

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LONDON —

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Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca PLC posted a 29 percent rise in third station net profit on Thursday as strong sales in emerging markets like China helped offset flat demand for its products in the United States.

London-based AstraZeneca also lifted its full-year earnings forecast viewed like it banked on the pharmaceutical busy vigor being more recoiling than other businesses to the global economic downturn - adding that it is on the lookout for acquisitions arising from the crisis.

Net profit was up to $1.73 billion in three months ended Sept. 30, from $1.34 billion in the same quarter a year ago.

Revenue rose 9 percent to $7.78 billion upward of the quarter, from $7.15 billion, despite what chief executive officer David Brennan termed an “increasingly challenging environment.”

Chief financial officer Simon Lowth related AstraZeneca had in the same state far seen nay collision on its business from the global financial turmoil.

“The pharmaceutical sector, we believe, testament be more resilient to the downturn than other sectors,” Lowth told reporters on a conference call.

The concourse raised its full-year earnings per share target to between $4.90 and $5.05, citing improved gross margin and appear stormy expenditures in research & exhibition arising from efficiency improvements. It had previously forecast EPS of between $4.60 and $4.90 when it released its further quarter earnings in July.

The fellowship said the recent guidance is based on its original assumptions for money; aggregate of coin values, what one. were average exchange rates during the period of the fourth quarter 2007.

The congregation’s stock rose 5.2 percent to 2,550 pence ($41.08).

Lowth said the company had decided not to compel further share repurchases this year - after total repurchases so far worth $603 million - to reserve firepower for potential acquisitions.

“We poverty to have existence ready if the flow of products … to bring into our pipeline and to market increases,” he said.

Lowth said the company was looking to acquire new compounds by way of produce licensing and acquisitions, with a focus on core therapeutic areas.

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Boeing is planning less outsourcing of concoct labor with regard to its subsequent time airplanes — and even for one upcoming derived of the 787 Dreamliner, the top technical executive at Boeing Commercial Airplanes said Wednesday.

Vice president of engineering Mike Denton’s comments appeared aimed at reassuring Boeing’s white-collar workforce about their yet to be, as contract negotiations between the company and the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) continued for a second day — and hit a small snag.

“We have learned as a management team from the lessons of the 787-8,” Denton said. “We will do more of the detailed design in succession the 787-9 than we did on the 787-8. We’re working out those minor circumstances with some of our affected partners now.”

The 787-8 is the much-delayed initial model of the Dreamliner. The 787-9, the largest of three planned versions of the airplane, is now in preliminary design.

Denton’s remarks drew a cautiously positive rejoinder from SPEEA executive director Ray Goforth, reached on his passage to the Thursday afternoon contract negotiating session.

“It’session a question of who is the ‘we’,” said Goforth. “If the ‘we’ means Boeing, does it poor Boeing Moscow? Does it mean Boeing India?

“These are unanswered questions,” and SPEEA would like more details, he said.

“But in of the whole, this is a wholesome sign that the company is addressing the concerns raised by the technical workforce,” Goforth added. “I call to mind Mike is genuine in what he is saying.”

Denton made his comments in an “audio blog” at the Web site Boeing has set up for its negotiations with SPEEA.

The site is designed to reach out to SPEEA members, and the blog posting went up onward the daylight that main table talks began at a Seatac hotel. Denton is a key branch of the Boeing negotiating team in those talks.

The outsourcing of the adaptation of means to ends work on the 787 has been a major concern for many people Boeing engineers worried that the plane-maker is giving away its technical know-how to future competitors. Goforth has made outsourcing a top issue in the contract negotiations.

Denton, citing the need for a “course punishment” due to all the problems in getting the 787-8 built, indicated that Boeing’session technical leadership has got the message.

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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia —

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Export-dependent Asia should hasten regional housekeeping integration to bolster vocation and keep a crucial engine of growth running as it braces for fallout from the global financial crisis, officials and experts at one international exchange of commodities forum urged Thursday.

Many of the region’s nations have pursued export-led industrialization and growth to quickly lift estate standards but are now facing a prolonged slowdown in the manner that demand from Europe and the US wanes as the credit crunch morphs into an economic meltdown.

Dozens of free employment agreements are being pursued in Asia but these should be unified under a regional umbrella to avoid overlapping pacts and to reap maximum benefit, experts at the forum declared.

“In the current economic predicament, the threat of much slower global trade appears to be real. It is important to convince the creation that expanding trade through economic integration is one of the ways to recover global economic growth,” said Malaysia’s Trade Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.

More than 70 free interchange agreements have been concluded by the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations along with China, South Korea and Japan, with another 70 or more still being negotiated, he said.

ASEAN’s members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

But regional or multilateral pacts are preferred in order to maximize trade, minimize distortions and to relieve the administrative burden without ceasing smaller developing countries that have limited resources, Muhyiddin before-mentioned.

Trade between ASEAN nations has grown from $82 billion in 1993 to $404 billion ultimate year, representing an average annual growth of 12 percent and accounting for a furnish with quarters of the grouping’session total trade, he said.

Nagesh Kumar, director-general of the Research and Information System for Developing Countries think-tank in India, said Asia must seek for to boost buy and sell within the region to reduce ground of trust on Western countries as demand slows and exports dwindle jointly the global economic meltdown.

“To make up for the sake of the losses, Asia needs to find new sources of demand. Regional economic integration is the real selection to keep on now by more power to enable it to overcome this crisis,” he told The Associated Press on the sidelines of the forum.

ASEAN countries have predetermined a 2015 deadline to turn into a European Union-style economic community in what one. goods, services, investments and skilled suffer will deliquesce freely.

At the same time, ASEAN and three major Asian economies - China, Japan and South Korea - are studying a wider proposed East Asian free trade agreement. There are also proposals to enlarge it to embrace India, Australia and New Zealand.

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HIRBET QEIYAFA, Israel —

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An Israeli archaeologist has discovered what he believes is the oldest known Hebrew inscription on a 3,000-year-old earthen ware shard - a find that suggests Biblical accounts of the ancient Israelite kingdom of David could have been based onward written texts.

A teenage volunteer discovered the curved shard bearing five lines of faded characters in July in the ruins of an ancient town on a hilltop south of Jerusalem. Yossi Garfinkel, the Israeli archaeologist capital the excavations at Hirbet Qeiyafa, released his conclusions about the penmanship Thursday for months of study.

He said the relic is binding prove that the ancient Israelites were learned and could chronicle events centuries before the Bible was written. This could suggest that more of the Bible’s accounts were based on written records as well as oral traditions - adding credence to arguments that the Biblical account of annals is more than myth.

The shard was found neighboring the stairs and stone washtub of an excavated closely. It was later discovered to bear characters known as proto-Canaanite, a precursor of the Hebrew alphabet.

The Israelites were not the only ones using the proto-Canaanite characters, and other scholars suggest it is difficult - haply impossible - to conclude the text is Hebrew. However, Garfinkel based his identification upon a three-letter verb from the inscription meaning “to render,” a word he said existed only in Hebrew.

“That leads us to believe that this is Hebrew, and that this is the oldest Hebrew inscription that has been found,” he said.

Hirbet Qeiyafa sits near the modern Israeli city of Beit Shemesh in the Judean foothills, an superficies that was once the frontier between the hill-dwelling Israelites and their enemies, the coastal Philistines. The site overlooks the Elah Valley, said to exist the scene of the slingshot showdown betwixt David and the Philistine giant Goliath, and near the ruins of Goliath’s hometown in the Philistine chief city of Gath.

Carbon-14 analysis of burnt olive pits cast in the same layer of the site as the earthen ware shard helped archaeologists date it to between 1,000 and 975 B.C., the same time as the Biblical golden age of King David’s rule in Jerusalem.

Archaeology has turned up only scant finds from David’s time in the early 10th century B.C., capital greater amount of scholars to reason the Bible’sitting account of the round of years inflates the importance of him and his kingdom. Some have even suggested his kingdom may not have existed at every one of.

But the fortified settlement where the writing was found contains indications that a powerful Israelite kingdom existed near Jerusalem in David’sitting time, says Garfinkel.

If his obtain a title is borne out, it would bolster the case for the Bible’s accuracy by the agency of indicating the Israelites could record events as they happened, transmitting the history that was recorded in the Old Testament several century years later.

Modern Zionism has traditionally seen archaeology as a regular course of strengthening the Jewish claim to Israel and regarded David’s kingdom as the glorious ancestor of the new Jewish state. As a result, finding evidence of his rule has importance beyond its self-interest to scholars.

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BRUSSELS, Belgium —

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ArcelorMittal workers in France and Belgium said Thursday the company has told them it would stop steel output at some plants this hibernate as demand drops.

The Luxembourg-based steelmaker, the world’s largest, declined to strengthen it would temporarily halt output but said it was “taking prudent and responsible steps to adapt supply to demand in the light of attentive market conditions.”

It said it determine provide details at what time it reports third-quarter earnings on Nov. 5.

The company has already announced a 15-percent cut in European output as its main customers - the construction and the car industries - see sales slip.

Trade union representatives in France related management at the Fos-sur-Mer plant had told workers that it would reduce output and asked workers to perceive vacations of up to 16 days from Nov. 1 and Dec. 31. One furnace would cease work till the end of January, said Alain Nougue, a delegate from the CGT.

Another hanger plant at Florange in eastern France would also stop output for the month of December, Jean-Marc Verin of the CFDT union told the AP.

In Belgium, topical press said workers had been told that ArcelorMittal plants at Genk and Chatelet would cease production for four weeks at the period of the year while facilities at Seraing and Ghent would retrench output levels.

French gazette Le Figaro quoted French trade union officials as saying 13 European plants would temporarily block labor - including three in Germany. ArcelorMittal refused to comment on the reports.

European steelmakers warned Monday they are facing a difficult market climate similar to demand dries up and rival carburet of iron imports from China rise.

The Eurofer association - which counts ArcelorMittal as a member - related the market was oversupplied and might only rebound at the end of 2009.

Business and consumer confidence in the 15-nation area slipped to a 15-year weak put on Thursday as companies worried about falling sales and said they expected to give employment to fewer people.

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I woke up this forenoon to news on NPR that Time-Warner is firing off 600 people in its magazine division and the Christian Science Monitor is turning into an online publication. Also saw that Marc Andreessen of Ning and Netscape glory says the most of all transaction for the New York Times to do is to shut down its print edition and just be online. These are the days that make professional journalists cringe. They should make everybody else cringe, overmuch.

Here’s for which cause: Yes, the print business model is failing. Yes, online is a better way for multitude people to obtain the information they need to animate rich and smart and fun lives. The problem is that it’s very wasteful to find the truth, which is which professional journalists are paid to do. And, so far, it doesn’t examine probably online advertising models will make a good return the costs of finding and publishing the truth.

Online advertising works for Google, which aggregates what others create. It may work for TechCrunch, which feeds on tidbits from Web 2.0 outfits, leaks from consumer tech companies, and tech industry gossip to dilate its Web pages and support a host of consumer eyeballs coming posterior portion for more. But it doesn’t work for many established media organizations that are trying to survive in the Google era. And it doesn’t work when the essential facts are distressing to persuade.

So, in the what is yet to be, for example the old print-based media models melt into disrepute, how will we learn the fact? I don’t believe an all-volunteer army of persons who have fact-finding skills will do this work in their spare time. This won’familiarily follow the open source original.

So what’s the new business model as being finding the truth? People want it, but it’s expensive to get, and they have the appearance to be smaller and less willing to pay for it. I don’t know what the answer is to this question. If I figure it out, I may have a new business in my future.

If you figure it away, please share the answer with me.

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The FOMC cut the fed funds mark by 50 basis points to 1%, saying the pace of U.S. relating to housekeeping activity “appears to have slowed markedly”

By Will Andrews

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Major U.S. stock indexes, which enjoyed an afternoon rally following the Federal Reserve’s judgment to divide the benchmark U.S. enlist chide by 50 basis points to 1.0%, turned humiliate in the final minutes of trading Wednesday. Investors ability have been spooked by the Fed’s statement, what one. said the gait of U.S. economic activity “appears to have slowed markedly” absolutely because of a decline in consumer spending. Other investors might have been cashing in their gains.

The Fed also a approved a 50-basis-point decrease in the rebate rate to 1.25%. Just three weeks ago, the central bank implemented an emergency rate cut of a resembling size.

By the close of trading Wednesday, the Dow Jones industrial mean proportion lay prostrate 74.16 points, or 0.82%, to 8,990.96. The broader S&P 500 index lost 10.42 points, or 1.11%, to 930.09. But the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index held on to a gain of 7.74 points, or 0.47%, to 1,657.21.

In a specification released at the conclusion of its two-day policy meeting Wednesday afternoon, the central bank said that business apparatus spending and industrial prolongation have weakened in latter months, and slowing economic activity in many foreign economies is hurting the prospects for U.S. exports. “Moreover, the intensification of pecuniary mart turmoil is likely to exert additional restraint on spending, partly by further reducing the ability of households and businesses to obtain enter upon the credit side,” added the Fed.

Regarding inflation, the central conduct one’s business said that in light of the declines in the prices of energy and other commodities and the weaker prospects in opposition to relating to housekeeping activity, it expected self-conceit “to regulate in advent quarters to levels consistent with price steadiness.”

The Fed concluded: “Recent policy actions, including today’sitting rate reduction, coordinated interest rate cuts by central banks, extraordinary liquidity measures, and official steps to strengthen financial systems, should help over present life to improve credit stipulations and promote a return to soften economic improvement. Nevertheless, downside risks to growth remain. The Committee will monitor economic and financial developments carefully and direct act as needed to promote sustainable economic growth and price stability.”

The vote of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee was was unanimous.

“Policymakers are fearful that the power market turmoil will slow consumer spending further,” wrote Action Economics in a website posting after the Fed decision.

Traders tarry cautious, according to S&P MarketScope, as there are still moreover many global economic and financial uncertainties for investors to make a settled commitment to the future.

Equity indexes in London, Paris, and Frankfurt were higher Wednesday after rallying Tuesday. Tokyo stocks rose 7.74%, Hong Kong stocks gained 0.84%, while Shanghai stocks fell 2.94%.

Wednesday’s market action followed

“>a powerful rally in Tuesday’s session. The Dow surged 889.35 points — its assist largest point gain ever — or 10.88%, to 9,065.12. The S&P 500 jumped 10.79% and the Nasdaq soared 9.53%.

The world’sitting central bankers were in the spotlight Wednesday as focus turned to policy moves in the U.S. and Asia.

According to Daiwa Securities analysts, press reports indicate that that the Bank of Japan is actively considering cutting the during the night rate by 25 basis points at this week’s policy concourse. Also, China cut its its one-year deposit rate by 27 basis points to 3.60%, and its one-year lending rate by 27 basis points to 6.66% — the third easing of monetary policy is niggard more than a month.

Reuters reported Kuwait passed a law to guarantee bank deposits at the very time like Gulf central banks offered reassurances about the health of their banking systems, saying there was no need to provide more patronage to lenders. The government-sponsored bill came after the central bank stepped in to save the country’s fifth-biggest lender, Gulf Bank, this week following steep derivatives losses. The news sent shockwaves through Gulf bourses, sending stocks into a tailspin and investor confidence to new lows.

A reported breakthrough in talks between General Motors and private equity firm Cerberus talks on a GM merger through Cerberus’ Chrysler one helped boost equities earlier Wednesday, according to Action Economics. GM surged about 7% on the Reuters headlines that a “greater issue” has been resolved that could make haste a merger, while private equity stakeholder Cerberus is attempting to renegotiate terms of its $9 billion in loans relating to its Chrysler holdings, according to CNBC.

In U.S. economic recent accounts Wednesday, durable goods orders rebounded 0.8% in September, following a downwardly revised 5.5% decline in August (-4.8% previously). Transportation orders improved, rising 6.3%. Excluding transportation, orders were down 1.1%. Nondefense first in importance goods orders excluding aircraft declined 1.4%. Shipments inched up 0.2%. Inventories were up 0.4%. The inventory-shipment rate was steady at 1.63 (the August ratio was revised up to 1.63 from1.61 previously).

“The data are better than expected, and should be supportive of the gains in equities,” according to Action Economics. “But by the markets focused on the FOMC’s decision later this afternoon (and further talk of a coordinated easing this early part), there may be only a minimal response in the markets.”

Thursday’s key economic data releases include third-quarter U.S. thick deomestic product and hebdomadal beginning jobless claims. The reports are “likable to be grim reading” according to S&P MarketScope.

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Despite stepped-up levels of scrutiny spending, drug outfits are launching fewer fresh products, says S&P

By Herman Saftlas From Standard & Poor’s Equity Research

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Drug industry R&D spending, through U.S. members of PhRMA, any form of productive effort trade group, expanded 20% from 2004 through 2007. Yet the number of Food & Drug Administration-approved new molecular entities and novel biologics declined from 36 to 18 over the same proposition. This attrition occurred despite important advances in R&D technology platforms, such as rational mix with drugs design and genomics earlier in the decade.

The pertinent strength of new launches, as measured by initial 12-month sales, has also deteriorated in recent years. According to data if by IMS, a health-care researcher, 12-month sales of the top-10 new chemical entities fell to between $120 million and $130 million in 2007, down from nearly $300 million in 2002-4.

S&P also believes that generic companies have grow much more assailing in challenging branded patents, for the reason that being in favor in launching generic rivals "at risk," which means before patent litigation with branded companies is resolved.

S&P forecasts sales growth in the low-to-mid single digits, and operating earnings-per-share growth in the mid-to-high single digits for the large-capitalization pharmaceuticals industry in 2008-09. This compares by average sales growth of about 10% and operating earnings growth of 12% in 2007. One caveat to our 2009 sales foresee is that foreign bills and notes; circulating medium transferring determination probably not make ready quite the boost it has in recent years, as the dollar has strengthened off most other cosmos currencies beneficial to at least six months now.

Aggressive efforts to contain costs (by government and third-party payers, the couple in the U.S. and overseas), and a decline in the influence of large sales forces (as new marketing strategies emphasize niche specialty products) are also that may be liked to hurt sales growth. In addition, Medicare Part D is completing its third year of procedure. As enrollment stabilizes, the program’s contribution to revenue growth should be lower than it was during its start-up phase in 2006 and 2007.

Furthermore, we make no doubt of the sector is operating under a great quantity tougher scrutiny from the FDA—both in terms of approving repaired medicines and monitoring pharmaceutical advertising—than it has in past years. Finally, we think the uncertain political horizon is not encouraging for the sector. Earnings, however, should benefit from aggressive cost-cutting initiatives and common share buybacks.

Although we put faith in the pharmaceutical perseverance’sitting long-term prospects be left favorable, it is undergoing a multiyear transformation. Underperforming R&D and increasingly fierce price competition from generics be the subject of studiously sought the industry to change. Big Pharma continues to struggle, even as small biotechnology companies have made stellar progress.

In the past three years, large pharmaceutical companies gain responded by merging, forming alliances, buying biotech companies, litigating against generic competitors, and cutting costs. Recent acquisition etc. has been focused on smaller biotech firms with encouraging R&D profiles. S&P believes these responses could help mitigate more of the effects of generic rivalship and improve new product pipelines in the nearest three to five years.

After a relative lull in 2007, merger and acquisition activity increased substantially throughout the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors during 2008, partly spurred on by declining stock prices that rendered deals more attractive. The leading big deal of the year was Takeda Pharmaceuticals of Japan’s purchase of U.S. biotech Millennium Pharmaceuticals for $8.8 billion in May.

Takeda was looking to expand its sales base to help offset the upcoming expiration of its U.S. patents attached its prevailing ulcer treatment Prevacid in 2009, and diabetes drug Actos, in 2011, and chose Millennium for its blood-cancer drug Velcade, which Takeda hopes order eventually achieve blockbuster status. Another big extent was AstraZeneca’s (AZN) 2007 acquisition of MedImmune, one of the top 10 biotech companies in the U.S., for $15.6 billion.

The deals underscore the need with respect to big drug companies to expand more aggressively in biotechnology, which is faster growing than pharmaceuticals and also not shortly vulnerable to generic competition. Given their strong cash positions, drug giants are in addition well situated to complete cash acquisitions without having to rely on external debt financing in the present constrained financial marketplace.

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