Healthcare Business Recap: Questcor Faces Inquiry, AstraZeneca Data Published

Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. (NYSE:VRX) has bought the rights to Visudyne, which is a treatment for a form of age-related blindness in which there is an abnormal growth of leaky blood vessels. The buyer is paying QLT Inc. (NASDAQ:QLTI) $112.5 million upfront for Visudyne, and might subsequently pay an additional $20 million.

Don’t Miss: Murky Future for Peregrine.

Shares of Questcor Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOR) lose more than a third of their value Monday on word of a government inquiry, while several analysts cut their ratings. Oppenheimer lowered the stock to Perform, Piper Jaffray to Neutral, and Leerink Swann to Market Perform. However, Leerink pointed to more than just the federal investigation, saying that its channel checks confirm the reimbursement risks to Acthar.

AstraZeneca Group plc (NYSE:AZN) announces that results from its PLATO study of a greater reduction in thrombotic cardiovascular events with Brilinta tablets plus aspirin contrasted with clopidogrel plus aspirin were consistent regardless of age. The data are now published in the September issue of Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, and also were presented at the American College of Cardiology.

Shares of Vivus, Inc. (NASDAQ:VVUS) slid Monday subsequent to Needham lowering its price target on the shares, as the analyst’s discussions with management made them suspect that the European regulatory environment is going to be far more restrictive on weight loss drugs than was previously predicted. After the meeting, it doesn’t foresee Qsymia winning European approval in the near future, and so removes those metrics from its pricing models.

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