Top news
* Roche Holding AG's full-year 2017 net income fell 9% at constant exchange rates on a yearly basis to CHF8.83 billion from CHF9.73 billion, impacted by impairments of goodwill and intangible assets. For 2018, the Swiss drugmaker expects EPS to grow at a high-single-digit rate and sales to stay steady or grow at a low-single-digit rate.
Roche CEO Severin Schwan said the success of recent new drug launches — notably Ocrevus for multiple sclerosis and cancer medicine Tecentriq — will enable the pharma group to offset the loss of patent exclusivity on a handful of its older blockbuster cancer drugs.
* Tokyo-based Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. said full-year 2017 net income attributable to shareholders rose 35.7% year over year to ¥72.71 billion, or ¥132.83 per share, from ¥53.59 billion, or ¥97.97 per share. For the full year ending Dec. 31, 2018, the Roche unit forecasts revenues of ¥541.50 billion, a 1.4% year-over-year growth.
* Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. booked nine-month net profit attributable to shareholders of ¥240.90 billion, or ¥308.59 per share, for fiscal year 2018, up 45.4% from ¥165.70 billion, or ¥212.08 per share, in the year-ago period. The Tokyo-based pharma company raised its revenue and profit forecast due to increased sales of cancer drug Velcade.
* Novo Nordisk A/S reported a decline in fourth-quarter net profit to 8.25 billion Danish kroner, or 3.36 kroner per share, compared to 8.7 billion kroner, or 3.46 kroner per share, in the year-ago quarter. The company said Chairman Göran Ando and CFO Jesper Brandgaard will both step down from their roles, though Brandgaard will remain at the company.
* Brenda Fitzgerald, who has been on the job as director at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for six months, resigned amid questions over her financial conflicts of interest, an administration official confirmed. Politico reported Jan. 30 that Fitzgerald bought shares in a tobacco company one month into her leadership at the CDC, an agency charged with reducing the use of the substance.
* A joint healthcare venture by Amazon.com Inc., Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. could take many shapes, including the formation of a pharma company or hospitals, an executive at one of the companies told S&P Global Market Intelligence. The trio of companies announced their plan to form a healthcare company to service their collective 1 million employees Jan. 30 but shared few details about what form it will take.
The partnership could compel companies throughout the healthcare supply chain to beef up their own market power, consultants said.

On the policy front
* House lawmakers are calling on the chamber's leadership to hold a vote on the Senate version of the "right to try" bill after President Donald Trump urged Congress to pass the legislation during his first State of the Union address Tuesday, Bloomberg News reported. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., called for a floor vote on Wednesday to pass a law that would allow terminally ill patients to receive experimental therapies that have not yet gained U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval.
According to Arthur Caplan, medical ethics director at NYU Langone Medical Center, Trump must pressure pharma companies, instead of Congress, to allow dying patients to access these experimental medicines, CNBC wrote.
* The European Commission is putting forward a proposal that would allow EU member states to jointly assess new medicines and certain new medical devices. The proposed regulation on health technology assessment is expected to fast-track patient access to health tools and allow manufacturers to comply with only a single procedure.
M&A and capital markets
* Seattle Genetics Inc. is acquiring Cascadian Therapeutics Inc. for about $614 million in cash.
* Allergan plc closed its acquisition of biopharmaceutical company Repros Therapeutics Inc. for about $26.6 million.
* Harvard Bioscience, Inc. completed the acquisition of Data Sciences International Inc. for roughly $70 million.
* Sol-Gel Technologies Ltd. plans to sell 6,250,000 ordinary shares at $12.00 apiece for proceeds of $75.0 million in an IPO.
* Israel's Motus GI Holdings, Inc. plans to raise net proceeds of about $22.6 million through its IPO.
* Biofrontera AG intends to offer its American depositary shares, each representing two ordinary shares, in an IPO at a price between $11.00 and $13.00 per ADS to raise about $15 million.
Operational activity
* Germany-based Stada Arzneimittel AG appointed Peter Goldschmidt CEO, effective Sept. 1. He will succeed Claudio Albrecht and will be the company's fifth CEO since Hartmut Retzlaff stepped down in August 2016.
* Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. reported a year-over-year rise in fourth-quarter non-GAAP net income attributable to the company to $157.9 million, or 61 cents per share, from $87.7 million, or 35 cents per share, driven by increased cystic fibrosis product revenue.
* Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. completed the sale of a portfolio of products within its global women's health business across contraception, fertility, menopause and osteoporosis for $703 million in cash. The Israeli drugmaker will use proceeds from the sale to repay term loan debt.
* Indonesia-based PT Kalbe Farma Tbk. is looking for a local partner in Sri Lanka that will manufacture its generic drugs, President Director Vidjongtius told Bloomberg. Kalbe Farma, Southeast Asia's largest drugmaker, is also seeking to expand in the Middle East.
* The High Court of Delhi ordered Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh to pay Japanese drugmaker Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd. 35 billion Indian rupees as an arbitration award over the sale of generics maker Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd., which is controlled by the brothers, Bloomberg reported.
Our features
Amazon-Berkshire-JPM health enterprise piques Washington's interest: The new joint enterprise by the three industry giants to deliver simple, high-quality, transparent healthcare at a reasonable cost to their employees has piqued the interest of some in Washington.
Lilly Q4'17 earnings boosted by newer drugs; animal health unit woes continue: In the fourth quarter of 2017, animal health's worldwide revenue slipped by 6% to $790.9 million from $837.6 million in the same year-ago period.
Will Congress back Trump's pledges on drug prices, opioids, experimental meds?: President Donald Trump pledged to take actions to lower prescription drug prices, make experimental treatments available to terminally ill patients and tackle the U.S. opioid epidemic during his State of the Union speech.
Other features
* London-based digital health company Medopad Ltd. signed 15 trade deals with Chinese organizations for over £100 million in commercial projects and partnerships in China. Among those companies are Johnson & Johnson's Vision Care (Shanghai) and GlaxoSmithKline plc's GSK China, Bloomberg News reported.
* The New York Times highlights efforts by Chinese technology companies like Alibaba and Tencent to venture into healthcare, ahead of the recent announcement by industry giants Amazon, Berkshire and JPMorgan to shake up the sector.
The day ahead
Early morning futures indicators pointed to a mixed opening for the U.S. market.
In Asia, the Hang Seng was down 0.75% to 32,642.09. The Nikkei 225 rose 1.68% to 23,486.11.
In Europe as of midday, the FTSE 100 slid 0.03% to 7,531.36, and the Euronext 100 was up 0.38% to 1,067.00.
The Daily Dose is updated as of 6:30 a.m. ET. Some external links may require a subscription.
