Genentech shares fall due to possible delay in new drug use
San Francisco – Genentech Inc. shares fell more than 3 percent Wednesday, a day after the biotechnology company took some of the edge off a robust earnings report by announcing a potential delay in regulatory approval to use its popular drug Avastin against breast cancer.
The company had hoped to begin selling Avastin – which is used to battle colon cancer – for breast tumors starting in November. After the markets closed Tuesday, Genentech President Susan Desmond-Hellmann said the Food and Drug Administration will need more information than previously expected about Avastin’s use in breast cancer.
“We haven’t firmly established what the FDA would like,” she said in a conference call.
Nonetheless, the nation’s largest biotechnology company in terms of market capitalization, shattered Wall Street expectations with a 79 percent jump in second quarter earnings, driven largely by the continued popularity of its cancer fighting medicines.
Its shares fell $3.08, or 3.7 percent, to close at $80.98 on the New York Stock Exchange. They have traded in a 52-week range of $75.58 to $100.20.
For the quarter ended June 30, the company, which is based in South San Francisco, Calif., earned $531 million, or 49 cents per share, up from the previous year’s $296.2 million, or 27 cents per share.
EU fine boils down to competition in market
San Francisco – At its core, the $357 million fine levied against Microsoft Corp. comes down to one simple contention: Microsoft’s software for computer servers works faster and more efficiently with its ubiquitous Windows operating system than do rivals’ offerings.
European Union regulators have said the advantage isn’t due to a superior design but rather because Microsoft steadfastly guards the inner workings of Windows, which runs an estimated 90 percent of the world’s personal computers.
In 2004, they ordered the world’s biggest software maker to explain clearly how its operating system exchanges information, arguing the documentation would allow competing server software to compete on a level playing field.
More than two years later, regulators say Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft still has failed to comply with the order.
Specifically, they say, Microsoft hasn’t disclosed enough about the technical languages, known as protocols in engineering parlance, that one machine uses to ask another device to carry out tasks, such as sharing an office printer or dishing out word-processing files stored on a hard drive.
Disney slashing jobs, yearly film output
Los Angeles – Walt Disney Co. will substantially reduce its work force and slash its annual output of films from 18 to eight – cutbacks greater than Hollywood had anticipated, it was reported Wednesday.
Additionally, Daily Variety said all the movies will be Disney-branded, suggesting diminished roles for its Touchstone label. The Hollywood trade paper said a Disney announcement was expected within 10 days.
Burbank-based Disney, basking in the glow of a record $135.6 million debut weekend box office for “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” wouldn’t discuss the report.
“We are constantly evaluating our business to make it better and more efficient,” Disney spokeswoman Heidi Trotta said in a prepared statement to The Associated Press.
Disney’s move reflects a trend in Hollywood to cut costs amid increasing overhead, production budgets and marketing bills.
Disney has said for some time it was going to cut its total number of films and concentrate on Disney-branded offerings, which make more money that those released by the studio’s Touchstone label.
The studio has already greatly reduced the number of films released under its Miramax banner.
