Top news
* Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, believes it is time for the biopharmaceutical industry to move away from the 70-year-old antiquated egg-based process of developing a flu vaccine. This year's flu vaccine was largely ineffective, demonstrating only 36% protection overall.
Fauci noted that some companies are using modern techniques to produce flu vaccines for the U.S. market, like CSL Ltd. unit Seqirus Inc.'s cell-based product Flucelvax and Sanofi subsidiary Protein Sciences Corp.'s recombinant protein-based vaccine Flublok.
* S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings placed Express Scripts Holding Co.'s ratings on CreditWatch and Negative Watch, respectively, after Cigna Corp. agreed to acquire the company in a $67 billion deal.
* Manufacturing delays at Baxter International Inc., Pfizer and AmerisourceBergen Corp.'s PharMEDium unit have fueled nationwide shortages of basic medicines, leading some U.S. hospitals to formulate action plans rationing critically low products.

M&A and capital markets
* France's Sanofi completed the $11.6 billion acquisition of hemophilia drugmaker Bioverativ Inc. The latter will operate as a subsidiary of Sanofi and its common stock will cease to be traded on the Nasdaq.
* Amgen Inc. completed its tender offer to purchase 52,083,333 common shares, or 7.2% of its outstanding shares, at $192 apiece. The aggregate cost of the purchase was about $10 billion.
* Shanghai's Hua Medicine Ltd., which develops diabetes drugs, is planning to list its shares in Hong Kong via a $300 million IPO, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
* JW Therapeutics, a developer of immunotherapies, completed a $90 million series A financing from a group of investors, including Celgene Corp.'s Juno Therapeutics Inc.
Drug and product pipeline
* A 15-member U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recommended the approval of Pfizer Inc.'s Xeljanz to treat moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease, Reuters reported.
* The Menarini Group sought European Medicines Agency approval for delafloxacin to treat adults with acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections.
Our features
Cigna, Express Scripts $67B deal does not close door on other insurers: Execs: With Cigna's $67 billion purchase of Express Scripts, the last large, stand-alone pharmacy benefit manager and its roughly 100 million customers will be absorbed by a major health insurer.
Cigna eyes 'sustainable healthcare system' with Express Scripts deal: The combined entity is expected to establish a "significantly expanded portfolio of integrated health services" and will have more than 1 billion customer touch points every year, Cigna President and CEO David Cordani said.
Cigna, Express Scripts deal seen as merger between 'necessary partners': At a summit hosted by health insurance lobby America's Health Insurance Plans, newly installed Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a speech that his department would not interfere with market forces.
Taiwan Liposome's delivery systems make drugs work longer, better, says top exec: George Yeh, president of the Taiwan-listed biotech, spoke to S&P Global Market Intelligence about listing on the Nasdaq, developing its nanotechnology, and tackling a rare disease drug.
Lundbeck on the challenge of schizophrenia research: H. Lundbeck A/S Chief Medical Officer Doug Williamson spoke to S&P Global Market Intelligence about advances the Danish company is making in finding new treatments for schizophrenia and about a recent collaboration with Vanderbilt University.
Other features
* Bloomberg News has a feature on former Retrophin CEO Martin Shkreli, who was convicted of defrauding investors. He is set to be sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Kiyo Matsumoto in Brooklyn today.
* Bloomberg News also writes about how Amazon is not the only retail giant trying to make healthcare better for its employees.
* The U.S. FDA's decision to allow 23andMe Inc. to market a cancer risk test, the first in the agency's history, is spawning discussions about whether the move will help consumers' decision-making or generate confusion, The Wall Street Journal said in a feature.
* Costly and failed Alzheimer's trials, which led to Pfizer's decision to give up on finding a treatment, have doctors focusing on lifestyle factors rather than a drug breakthrough, CNBC said in a feature.
* The Financial Times has a feature on billionaires Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Jamie Dimon trying to "hack" healthcare through the latest medical technology advancements.
* STAT has a feature about the continuously rising costs of hemophilia treatments, driven by factors such as the lack of cheaper copies, or biosimilars.
The day ahead
Early morning futures indicators pointed to a mixed opening for the U.S. market.
In Asia, the Hang Seng increased 1.11% to 30,996.21, and the Nikkei 225 increased 0.47% to 21,469.20.
In Europe, around midday, the FTSE 100 was up 0.04% to 7,205.96, and the Euronext 100 was up 0.09% to 1,027.03.
The Daily Dose is updated as of 6:30 a.m. ET. Some external links may require a subscription.
This S&P Global Market Intelligence feature may contain information about credit ratings issued by S&P Global Ratings, a separately managed division of S&P Global. Descriptions in this news article were not prepared by S&P Global Ratings. The original S&P Global Ratings documents referred to in this feature can be found here.
