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Thursday, May 31 2018

Full Issue

In Effort To Ease Investors' Minds, Allergan To Sell Women's Health, Infectious-Disease Units

These two business lines are among the drugmaker's smallest. Meanwhile, the company announced a voluntary recall of nearly 170,000 birth control packs because of a packaging error that could lead to unintended pregnancy. Also, the World Health Organization is sharpening its focus on gaps in biotech regulations.

Allergan is exploring the sale of two relatively small businesses, in a bid to jolt sagging shares and ease the minds of worried investors. Allergan Chief Executive Brent Saunders told investors Wednesday that the company has begun a process to sell its women鈥檚-health and infectious-disease businesses. (Rockoff, 5/30)

Saunders said that after the sales, the company would focus on four core businesses: medical aesthetics, central nervous system, eye care and gastrointestinal products. 鈥淲e have a very strong pipeline in all those areas. Having a focus on those four areas will make Allergan a more exciting company,鈥 he said in an interview. (Erman, 5/30)

Drugmaker Allergan issued a voluntary recall for nearly 170,000 birth control packs after it was revealed that a packaging error聽could cause unintended pregnancies.聽The recall聽targets聽sample packs of Taytulla that were distributed to doctors' offices and then given to patients.聽(Hellmann, 5/30)

Cut-price copies of expensive biotech drugs promise to slash the cost of treating serious diseases, including cancer, in rich and poor countries alike - but uneven regulation has created a lopsided market. Now the World Health Organization (WHO) is stepping in to assess the quality of such so-called biosimilars, offering a global stamp of approval that could make them more widely available, while also raising the quality bar. (Hirschler, 5/30)

And on the topic of CEO pay -

When Laboratory Corp. of America disclosed pay for its chief executive in March, the company said he made $1.5 million in 2016. A week later, the diagnostic-lab chain filed a new document listing his pay at $10.9 million. Chief Executive David King didn鈥檛 get a retroactive raise. His employer just proofread its work. Such a big discrepancy is unusual, but LabCorp isn鈥檛 the only big company to make significant adjustments to past pay disclosures. (Francis, 5/30)

This is part of the Morning Briefing, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.
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