However, Martin Mackay and Mikael Dolston who will head the research departments for their respective companies are looking to come up with a new corporate structure which would combine the best of their R&D staff together rather than choosing the option for lay offs. They have together announced that the new Pfizer will have 18 separate R&D units and that they will make sure that both companies work together instead of working as two separate entities and in isolation. Now analysts and investors are playing a waiting game to see what Pfizer and Wyeth come up with.

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However, Pfizer has clearly denied all federal and state allegations and said that they agree that they had certain improper actions carried out during the past promotions of Bextra, but nothing in the present situation. DOJ blamed Pharmacia and Upjohn that they had received a net gain of around one billion dollars through the off-label sales of Bextra pain killer drugs and Pfizer management was involved as they had signed an agreement with Pharmacia and Upjohn.

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Mackay further confirmed that the combine research budget would reduces as Pfizer reviews both companies’ program over a period of six weeks and probably will manage to save around US$ 3 billion on R&D spending and one of the quickest ways to bring down the R&D spending is to cut down R&D jobs. Hence, many analysts believe that thousands of scientists currently working in Pfizer R&D section might lose their jobs very soon. After the merger is complete, Pfizer will look after the pharmaceutical research work and Wyeth will have to control and take charge of the biotech drug development.

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Pfizer announced that they have stopped admissions of new patients for their experimental lung cancer drug, as those who were under trial are suffering from serious side-effects and might even die. Pfizer stated that these patients will not go through their experimental lung cancer candidate anymore, but will continue to get the drug, figitumumab. Another Phase three trial testing figitumumab with Tarceva made by Roche and OSI Pharmaceuticals will continue. Pfizer in their statement have clearly mentioned that they have suspended their new lung cancer drug.

Pfizer has been trying hard to push into cancer drugs but the news is another great setback to Pfizer as they were trying to create a new business by pushing more experimental medicines into human testing. GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca are also working on the same lines where they are trying to develop and discover new drugs to combat cancer.

Earlier, Pfizer’s marketed cancer pill, Sutent, failed in April 2009 which was targeted to treat patients suffering from breast cancer. However, it was Xeloda by Roche that outclass the Pfizer’s cancer pill. Pfizer than came up with a clinical trial of axitinib, a drug to combat pancreatic cancer, but unfortunately that was stopped because it showed more risks compare to the benefits it should come out with.

Currently, Pfizer is focusing more on cancer, as it remains the hottest areas for research. However, the trend clearly shows that Pfizer is struggling to come out with a successful cancer drug that would dominate the market.

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Spectrum’s other cancer drug Zevalin, also formerly approved, now awaits the green light to be used at a different stage of treatment. Zevalin is a radioimmunotherapy drug that was approved in 2001 as a last resort treatment for Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (NHL), which afflicts an estimated 60,000 Americans a year. With a PDUFA date of September 7, 2009 Spectrum aims to get the drug approved as a first line treatment. The drug has already been approved for this in Europe with promising results, with marketing rights in all non-U.S. markets under Bayer. This is no doubt one of the facts fueling the rumor mill of a possible Bayer buyout of Spectrum.

News of an acquisition would not be surprising when current trends within the industry are taken into account. Pharmaceutical giants have been on a shopping spree buying up the little guys in an effort to remain profitable amidst pending patent expirations. A couple of examples of this being Pfizer’s (PFE) purchase of Wyeth (WYE), and Merck’s (MRK) acquisition of Schering Plough (SGP). Other recent news from Spectrum has Altair Nanotechnologies, Inc. (ALTI) assigning their patent rights of the drugs Renazorb and Renalan over to SPPI. This move sees a more limited 2005 deal between the two companies become a permanent patent sign-over. Spectrum Pharmaceuticals is definitely on the move head on over to the FavStocks.com stock market forum to discuss where it is headed.

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A quick search of the HEB Yahoo message boards for the word “Halted” returns over 2,000 results with 60 of those just from July 6th! I seriously doubt we have this many members accidently thinking this stock is halted. Cell Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTIC) has  over 1,600 halt related posts. Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ:DNDN) over 3,000. HEB, CTIC, and DNDN are small to mid sized companies, lets compare this to a much larger biotech company such as Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE). PFE returned 182 results for the term “halted” on the Yahoo message boards. Makes you wonder why there is about a 1000% increase in halted discussion between these stocks.

Do you think people genuinely, almost every day, believe that HEB was halted. I think this is an attempt to wear people out who may already be stressed since the FDA is late on their decision. This might be why you see the share price slowly eroding every day even though not much has changed for HEB the last few weeks.

Do yourself a favor and before you ever consider opening up a message talking about if HEB is halted, check for yourself first. The two links below will show you what stocks are halted for the day and what the different halt codes mean for that stock.

Tradehalts

TradeHaltCodes

If you are sick of all the inaccurate “Halted” posts on the message boards then perhaps is time you tried something new. FavStocks.com has a free stock market forum; it is free of the usual pumpers, spammers, and trolls.

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