Active Movers – Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) BHP Billiton Limited (ADR) (NYSE:BHP)
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GlaxoSmithKline’s new chief executive declared plans on Wednesday to narrow the focus of the group’s drug research by ditching more than 30 drug projects to improve returns in its core pharmaceuticals business.
Emma Walmsley, who took over in April, said GSK would in future allocate 80 percent of its R&D budget to respiratory and HIV/infectious diseases, together with two other potential areas of oncology and immuno-inflammation.
Thirteen clinical and around 20 pre-clinical programmes will be stopped, partnered or divested, and the group is considering options for its rare diseases unit after a planned review.
It also plans to stop selling the struggling diabetes drug Tanzeum and end a partnership with Johnson & Johnson over experimental rheumatoid arthritis drug sirukumab, in addition to divesting around 130 old drugs with limited sales.
Shares of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) declined -0.71% to $130.95 on Wednesday. The stock price floated in a range of $130.75 – 132.24. The stock moved on low volume, traded at a volume of 5,382,182 shares, as compared to its average daily volume of 5.69M shares. The market capitalization for the company is reported at $349.76B.
GSK has lagged behind rivals recently in producing multibillion-dollar blockbusters and has suffered a number of high-profile failures, undermining faith in its R&D skills.
“We’ve been too broadly spread,” Walmsley told reporters, adding that the overhaul would not result in a lower R&D budget because GSK had been investing too little in individual experimental drugs in the past.
Indeed, spending could rise as Walmsley and her team goes shopping for promising early-stage experimental drugs to bolster the pipeline in GSK’s priority areas.
The declaration came as Britain’s biggest drugmaker stated a 12 percent rise in adjusted earnings per share in sterling terms to 27.2 pence on sales up 12 percent at 7.32 billion pounds ($9.53 billion). (Source: Reuters)
BHP Billiton Limited (ADR) (NYSE:BHP) inclined 0.55 points or 1.37% at the market. The stock opened at $40.45. It reached an intraday trading high of $40.92 and closed at $40.76. The total volume traded for the day is 2,841,380, as compared to its average daily volume of 2.78M shares. Trading volume, or volume, is the number of shares or contracts that point towards the overall activity of a security or market for a given period. Trading volume is a key technical indicator an investor uses to identify momentum in a stock and confirm a trend or trend reversal. Volume gives an investor an idea of the price action of a security and whether he should buy or sell the security.
Trading volume can also signal when an investor should take profits and sell a security because of low activity. If there is no relationship between the trading volume and the price of a security, this signals weakness in the current trend and a possible reversal.
The current EPS for the company has been recorded at $0.93 and the beta value recorded by the company stands at 1.09 points.