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...Mergers led the US company to become known as Merck Sharp & Dohme, and this spurred a 1950s agreement for it to keep exclusive rights to the family name in North America while calling itself MSD everywhere...
...Merck’s outperformance stands in sharp contrast to rival Pfizer, which cut its full-year guidance after it warned that a strengthening dollar was hurting its performance....
...Earnings Caterpillar Q4 $1.70 ($2.32) Monsanto Q4 $2.58 ($2.28) Ryanair Holdings Q3 €0.00 (€0.01) ●Attention will focus on how far a sharp fall-off in European sales has hurt Ford Motor when the US’...
...Rival Merck was also higher, rising 1.5 per cent to $35.81 as it reported first- quarter earnings that also beat estimates....
...He cites as symptomatic the large-scale takeovers this year of Wyeth by Pfizer and Schering-Plough by Merck, which he argues were primarily designed to defer patent expiries and cut costs rather than provide...
...Sanofi-Aventis rose 3.4 per cent to €46.42 and Merck gained 2.6 per cent to €68.60....
...By the end of 2011, Pfizer alone, the world’s largest company, faces the collapse of its monopoly franchise over Lipitor, the world’s top selling drug, which generated $12.7bn in sales last year....
...Healthcare stocks Merck , down 1.3 per cent at $52.71, and Pfizer , off 0.5 per cent at $27.41, both weighed on the blue-chip benchmark....
...Major pharmaceutical groups have also surged, with Merck rising 18 per cent, Pfizer 15 per cent and Forest Labs 34 per cent....
...Pfizer also pushed higher, adding 4 per cent to $24.79....
...and Merck....
...Meanwhile, sharp gains in the pharmaceutical sector failed to keep the other two indices afloat....
...Pfizer gained 1.7 per cent for the week. Its rival Merck , which has faced similar problems, added 3.2 per cent....
...Merck and Pfizer, two of the biggest US drugmakers, fell 4.3 per cent to $31.20 and 0.8 per cent to $26.59, respectively....
...Pfizer shares lost 1.9 per cent on Wednesday when the news came, and the decline continued in the next sessions....
...Merck's stock saw limited action while Pfizer's was fractionally lower....
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