June 25 (Reuters) – A closely watched blood clot preventer
from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co and Pfizer Inc
failed to win approval from U.S. health regulators, the
companies said on Monday, sending their shares lower.

Shares of Bristol fell nearly 4 percent after the news about
the drug, Eliquis, which is expected by Wall Street to
eventually gain approval and dominate a potential $10 billion
market to replace generic blood thinner warfarin. Pfizer shares
dropped 1.5 percent.

June 19 (Reuters) – Billionaire investor Carl Icahn
nominated four directors to the 10-person board of Forest
Laboratories Inc, saying that the drugmaker has “engaged
in conduct to enrich and entrench management to the detriment of
the stockholders.”

Icahn, the company’s second-largest shareholder with a 9.9
percent stake, last month disclosed plans to back another slate
of directors at Forest’s next annual meeting, after failing to
get his nominees elected last year.

By Lewis Krauskopf

(Reuters) – The recently retired head of health insurer Aetna Inc criticized the component at the heart of the U.S. healthcare overhaul law, known as the individual mandate, and predicted it would not be upheld.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule before the end of the month on the law, championed by U.S. President Barack Obama and designed to expand coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Investors could be excused for avoiding health insurance and hospital stocks as a U.S. Supreme Court decision nears on President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul law – an outcome that could send the companies’ shares down 10 percent or more.

Aside from an educated guess, little real analysis can predict a ruling that has at least a half-dozen possible results for a law that affects wide swathes of the healthcare industry.

June 11 (Reuters) – UnitedHealth Group Inc, the
largest U.S. health insurer by market value, said it would
maintain the health coverage protections included in President
Barack Obama’s healthcare law regardless of how the Supreme
Court rules on the legislation.

The Supreme Court is expected to decide later this month
whether to strike down all or portions of the law, Obama’s
signature domestic policy achievement that was passed in 2010.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – UnitedHealth Group Inc, the largest U.S. health insurer by market value, said it would maintain the health coverage protections included in President Barack Obama’s healthcare law regardless of how the Supreme Court rules on the legislation.

The Supreme Court is expected to decide later this month whether to strike down all or portions of the law, Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement that was passed in 2010.

May 30 (Reuters) – Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who last
year failed to get his nominees elected to the board of Forest
Laboratories Inc, plans to back another slate of
directors at the drugmaker’s next shareholder meeting, according
to a regulatory filing on Wednesday.

Icahn holds 9.92 percent of Forest shares — up from 9.2
percent last August — making him the company’s second-largest
shareholder behind Wellington Management’s 12.8 percent stake,
according to Thomson Reuters data.

By Lewis Krauskopf

(Reuters) – Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc released corrected data involving its cystic fibrosis treatments on Tuesday that lowered the number of patients who showed certain levels of improved lung function, sending its shares down more than 22 percent.

The initial data, released earlier this month, sent Vertex shares soaring on hopes the company could have a multibillion-dollar franchise in the treatment of cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening genetic disorder that affects about 70,000 people worldwide.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Americans’ low use of healthcare services has proved a boon to health insurers over the past two years, reducing medical claim costs and raising profits. The growing view on Wall Street is that those days are over.

A series of first-quarter earnings disappointments for health insurers in the past month has damped hopes for a repeat of the profit windfalls that led to huge stock gains in 2011.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – After years of trying to convince potential clients of its superiority over chief rival Medco, Express Scripts Holding Co (ESRX.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is now finding the company it bought for $29 billion was doing a lot of things right.

Express Scripts is less than two months into digesting its massive acquisition that made it the clear leader in managing drug benefits for Americans, doubling the number of prescriptions it processes a year to about 1.5 billion.