Drugmakers Follow Merck, Schering-Plough Lower

By Chris Frankie ,

Pharmaceutical companies were down across the board on Friday following bleak news coming out of the sector.

Merck

(MRK) - Get Report

warned of an

earnings shortfall for the second quarter and full year, and its shares lost 7.4% to $69 in recent

New York Stock Exchange

trading. Also this morning,

Schering-Plough

(SGP)

was down 6.5% to $37.93 after the company said the

Food and Drug Administration

has found that it still

isn't in compliance with good manufacturing practices. The regulators first found problems with the company's operations in

February.

Additionally,

Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories

, the pharmaceuticals unit of

American Home Products

(AHP)

, said it has received a not-approvable letter from the FDA for a treatment for acute long-bone fractures. The agency's letter focused on the design of the clinical study and the interpretation of the clinical data. Shares of AHP were off 2.2% to $60.83 in afternoon market activity.

Others in the sector were also moving downward.

GlaxoSmithKline

(GSK) - Get Report

was off 0.6% to $56.55, and

Pfizer

(PFE) - Get Report

lost 4.2% to $43.

AstraZeneca

(AZN) - Get Report

dropped 1.4% to $49.20, and

Bristol-Myers Squibb

(BMY) - Get Report

fell 1.6% to $54.45.

Novartis

(NVS) - Get Report

was off 4.7% to $34.98.

Aventis

(AVE)

slipped 0.4% to $78.32, while

Pharmacia

(PHA)

slid 5% to $48.93.

Johnson & Johnson

(JNJ) - Get Report

lost 2.5% to $51.72.

Loading ...