German govt to cut 2012 growth f’cast - source
Germany’s leading economic institutes last week cut their
economic growth forecast to just 0.8 percent next year after 2.9
percent this year.The government’s current forecast still point to growth of
1.8 percent next year and see 2.6 percent expansion this year.
It is due to publish its new numbers on Thursday.
UPDATE 1-Samsung Life shares fall as CJ Group firms sell
* Proceeds expected to finance Korea Express takeover
(Adds share prices)SEOUL, Oct 18 (Reuters) - CJ Group member companies sold 4
million shares in Samsung Life via a block sale for
342 billion won ($300 million), the companies said on Tuesday.Shares in Samsung Life tumbled 6 percent, following the
stake disposal at the low end of the offered price range,The stake sale by CJ Cheiljedang and CJ O
Shopping comes as food-to-entertainment conglomerate
CJ looks for ways to finance its takeover of Korea Express
.The two firms sold the shares at 85,500 won per share, a
discount of 5 percent to the stock’s Oct 17 close of 90,000 won,
according to their regulatory filings.Two affiliates of CJ Group had planned to increase their
size of stake on auction to 6.4 million shares if there is
sufficient demand, from the initial offering of 4 million shares
equivalent to a 2 percent stake, according to IFR.CJ Cheiljedang slid 2.1 percent and CJ O Shopping gained
0.8 percent as of 0021 GMT, versus the broader market’s
1.8 percent fall.
UPDATE 1-IMS revises Incivek drug data; Vertex shares jump
* Incivek is Vertex’s recently launched hepatitis C drugBy Toni ClarkeOct. 13 (Reuters) - IMS Health, which provides prescription
data and other services to the pharmaceutical industry, said it
is revising estimates of the number of prescriptions written in
late September for Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc’s
hepatitis C drug Incivek, sending its shares up nearly 7
percent.Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Vertex’s shares had fallen
more than 20 percent since Sept. 21 amid concern that
prescriptions for Incivek, its key drug, were growing more
slowly than expected.”A significant portion of Incivek mail data was not
reported to IMS beginning with data week ending 9/23/11 through
data week ending 9/30/11,” IMS said in a statement to
subscribers after the market closed on Wednesday. “This
interruption should be resolved for the week ending 10/7/11.”A spokesman for Vertex declined immediate comment. However,
Geoffrey Porges, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein, said that in
his conversations with the company, Vertex said revised data
“seems likely to align the IMS data with their internal
impressions of the market,” namely, continued solid growth.Vertex will report sales from the first full quarter of the
drug in the United States when the biotechnology company
reports its quarterly earnings later this month.Incivek is one of two recently-launched hepatitis C drugs.
It competes with Victrelis, made by Merck & Co . Both
drugs promise a higher cure rate for the disease, which infects
the liver and can lead eventually to cirrhosis and liver
failure.Investors are closely watching the competition between the
two drugs to see which will gain greater market share, and are
sensitive to any indication that one or the other could be
flagging. The initial prescription data from IMS seemed to
indicate Incivek prescriptions were flattening, but IMS now
appears to have underreported the data.”This is the nature of any drug launch, and no
pharmaceutical or biotechnology company marketing analyst with
any measure of experience would make judgments about the
performance of a launch, and a product’s long-term potential,
based on one, two or even three weeks of market audit data,”
said Porges, who earlier questioned the validity of the initial
IMS data. “We trust that the investment community will be
discouraged from doing the same after this correction.”Vertex shares rose nearly 7 percent to $43 in mid-morning
trading on Nasdaq.
