Mergers have led to many “efficiencies” to be realized, and allowed “redundancies” (i.e. low-yield jobs and departments) to be eliminated.  And now there is an ongoing threat to the sector from Washington.  While the target has gone away from all of healthcare to health insurance, we are still seeing the announcement from major companies of more job cuts.  We have compiled a few of the latest found announcements, ad this is just a part of the whole pie.

AstraZeneca PLC (NYSE: AZN) is reportedly offering buyouts “to thousands of its near-5,000 workers” from its U.S. sales force.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) has outlined more job cuts from its Wyeth combination as part of a projected 15% cut to the combined Pfizer-Wyeth team.  What this number will ultimately come to is still unknown, and Pfizer’s head count had already fallen by over 6,000 to 75,400 at the end of last quarter.

Boston Scientific  (NYSE: BSX) had job cuts a couple years ago, and it appears that the job cuts may not be over.  Recent health reform legislation from the Senate Finance Committee was noted by its CEO as being an event which could potentially trigger another 1,000 to 2,000 job cuts.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE: BMY) has been in an ongoing 10,000 layoff mode since last year, but in the last week came word that about 25% of its Abilify antipsychotic drug sales force after an evaluation from its co-marketing pact with Otsuka Corp.  These were recent cuts and are still unquantified.

Eli Lilly and Co. (NYSE: LLY) announced last month that it is targeting $1 billion in savings… with the elimination of up to 5,500 jobs total by some time in 2011.

This summer came the announcement from Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) about its plan to cut up a range of 3,615 to to 4,800 jobs.  That is a small amount considering the number of deals it has made and considering it has 120,000 employees.

JON C. OGG
OCTOBER 20, 2009

MONDAY OCTOBER 19

• Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX) $0.14 EPS on $2.04 billion in revenues

TUESDAY OCTOBER 20

• Biogen Idec Inc. (NASDAQ: BIIB) $1.04 EPS on $1.11 billion in revenues
• Gilead Sciences    Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD) $0.67 EPS on $1.76 billion in revenues
• Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG) $1.46 EPS and $256.44 million in revenues
• Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) $0.48 EPS and $11.4 billion in revenues
• Quest Diagnostics Inc. (NYSE: DGX) $0.96 EPS and $1.89 billion in revenues
• Stryker Corp. (NYSE: SYK) $0.69 EPS and $$1.62 billion in revenues

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21

• Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) $1.27 EPS and $3.79 billion in revenues
• Elan Corporation, plc (NYSE: ELN) -$0.13 EPS on $285.18 million in revenues
• Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE: LLY) $1.01 EPS and $5.4 billion in revenues
• Genzyme Corporation (NASDAQ: GENZ) $0.44 EPS and $1.11 billion in revenues
• St. Jude Medical, Inc. (NYSE: STJ) $0.58 EPS and $1.16 billion in revenues

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22

• Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) $0.51 EPS and $5.5 billion in revenues
• Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MRK) $0.83 EPS and $6 billion in revenues
• Schering-Plough    Corporation (NYSE: SGP) $0.39 EPS and $4.45 billion in revenues
• Zimmer Holdings Inc. (NYSE: ZMH) $0.86 EPS and $953.6 million in revenues

JON C. OGG
OCTOBER 16, 2009

The company and the University of Rochester Medical Center have announced that the landmark MADIT-CRT trial has met its primary endpoint, where the preliminary results showed the cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillators with a significant 29% reduction in death or heart failure interventions when compared to traditional implantable cardioverter defibrillators.

High risk, asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic, New York Heart Association Class I and II patients were enrolled in MADIT-CRT, and the data committee expects to present and publish the trial’s full results later this year.  This trial was sponsored exclusively by Boston Scientific.

If the data holds up this demonstrates that early intervention with cardiac resynchronization therapy can slow the progression of heart failure. This was also the world’s largest randomized NYHA Class I/II CRT-D trial with more than 1,800 patients enrolled at 110 centers in 14 countries.

The trial is being conducted under the leadership of Principal Investigator Arthur J. Moss, M.D., Professor of Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

The group also noted that more than 80% of U.S. patients who receive an ICD or CRT-D were first indicated for this therapy by a clinical trial sponsored by Boston Scientific or its predecessors.

While patients in the trial must be in NYHA Class III/IV heart failure to be indicated for CRT-D therapy, the release noted that about 70% of all heart failure patients in the U.S. fall into Class I or II. Nearly 22 million people worldwide, including approximately 5.5 million Americans, suffer from some form of heart failure.

With Boston Scientific, you never know if another bomb is around the corner.  But this could be some of the first solid news in quite some time.  Shares are indicated higher by 6% at $9.83 in early trading indications, and the 52-week trading range is $5.41 to $14.20.

To see how this could translate to upside, before the upside of this news analysts were looking for $8.16 billion in total 2009 revenues and $8.55 billion in 2010 revenues.

Jon C. Ogg
June 23, 2009

Boston Scientific (NYSE: BSX) will get to sell basically the same exact stent under a different name. Boston Scientific also has the old Taxus stent. Angiotech (NASDAQ: ANPI) is also Boston’s Taxus stent coating partner for its molecule.

As far as the others, this will get to compete with the Medtronic Inc. (NYSE: MDT) Endeavor stent system as well as Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) Cypher stent. Medtronic won the first Stent system approval in February after a 4-year hiatus. SurModics Inc. (NASDAQ: SRDX) is the molecule partner over at J&J for the drug-eluting coatings for teh Cypher stent.

This is being viewed as a key win for Abbott Labs with shares up 1.6% at $55.10 in after-hours trading.  The good news is that the dark clouds surrounding stents and drug-eluting stents is starting to lift.  The bad news on the topic is that this is now a highly competitive sub-sector in coronary  medical technology.

Jon Ogg
July 2, 2008