Sunday, September 12, 2010

Not Much Real "News" Expected -- From Merck -- At Morgan Stanley Global Healthcare Conference, Tomorrow


On the small chance that Whitehouse Station will actually make an important new disclosure tomorrow, I'll live-log portions of it, starting at 9:05 a.m., EDT tomorrow. Is news of a settlement of the Remicade®/Simponi® "change of control" dispute with J&J's Centocor unit possible? Nah, not really. But I will listen, just the same -- you never know.

Here's a link to listen in, for yourself -- you'll need to sign in and provide an email address, though.

I should point out that there will likely be some "serious back-scratching" going on at this conference -- that is, expect many softball questions, from the audience, as it is likely that this firm's parent has won an important piece of business from New Merck -- related to selling chunks of the European Organon animal health businesses -- here is the earlier rumor item link, and a snippet:

. . . .[New Merck and Sanofi/New Merial] have appointed Morgan Stanley to handle the sale of some assets that regulators are expected to ask them to divest, people familiar with the matter said Friday.

One person said, however, that the sale process isn't expected to kick off formally until autumn. . . .

As part of that process, the two drugmakers are expected to sell assets worth several hundred millions of dollars, in order to help secure regulatory approval from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and European Union antitrust authorities. . . .

At this point, that remains a rumor piece -- but we'll know soon. I should also mention that, at 3 p.m. Hong Kong time, on Wednesday, September 15, 2010 Merck will do essentially the same presentation at something called the CSLA Investors' Forum. I'll likely not even cover that one, absent some truly important new development, tomorrow at the Morgan Stanley fete.

1 comment:

Condor said...

Nothing really "material, and new" to report from the webcast. . . .

As expected -- Namaste