GlaxoSmithKline Plc, the U.K.’s largest drugmaker, expects to record a 1.57 billion-pound ($2.4 billion) charge in the second quarter to settle cases including claims that its Avandia diabetes treatment led to heart attacks.
The charge equates to an after-tax cost of 1.35 billion pounds, the London-based company said in a statement today. It covers settlements over a U.S. government probe into the company’s former manufacturing site at Cidra, Puerto Rico; product-liability and antitrust cases relating to the Paxil antidepressant; and lawsuits regarding Avandia and other products, Glaxo said.
Glaxo said it has settled the majority of product liability cases linked to Paxil and Avandia. The sum set aside includes provisions for cases that have been concluded and estimates for those that are still under way, Glaxo said. The company is trying to “put the Avandia litigation issue behind them before earnings and get the story as clean as possible going forward,” Mark Clark, an analyst at Deutsche Bank AG in London, said in a telephone interview.
“Most people are going to say this settles a substantial portion of their litigation and say it’s a positive, and some will balk at the size of the charge,” Clark said. “By any standard, $2.4 billion is a big charge for a quarter.”(Ver)
Ver tambien
Entradas
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario