Stock Commentary - Europe - week to Aug 7, 2006

6 August 2006

EUROPEAN: bourses see-sawed through the reporting week to July 31, amid mixed aspects of financial reporting and ongoing worries about events in the Middle East. PARIS, where investors took profits on the last day after a strong rally, saw a poor showing from Sanofi-Aventis, down 4.9%, ahead of the firm's results (see page 4), after it failed to get US antitrust clearance for its deal with generics firm Apotex over Plavix (clopidogrel) and news of an antitrust investigation (see page 2). bioMerieux outperformed the market with a 4.3% rise. FRANKFURT saw a fair amount of activity in the drug sector, with Altana rising 4.2% on speculation that it was about to sell off its pharmaceutical business, with Denmark's Nycomed reportedly expressing interest (see page 6). Bayer fell on the last day, though ended the week up a modest 0.4% (having risen as much as 1.3% on July 25), on the news that Schering AG, which it is acquiring, was withdrawing a batch of its X-ray contrast media, Ultravist (see page 6). Schering fell 1.0% overall. On the AMSTERDAM bourse, chemicals and pharmaceutical group DSM plunged 7.8% after the firm warned that third-quarter operating profits would come under pressure from raw materials prices.

LONDON: share prices were mixed, with drug majors AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline going in opposite directions, the former up 1.4% and the latter down 2.1%, both having reported second quarter results during the reporting week (page 5 this issue and (Marketletter July 31). Shire Pharma rose 4.3% overall, on the news of US regulatory approval for its Elaprase (idursulfase), a treatment for Hunter syndrome (Marketletter July 31).

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Chairman, Sanofi Aventis UK



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