S&P: Wyeth unaffected

Standard & Poor's said Wednesday that the ratings and outlook on pharmaceutical company Wyeth (A/negative/A-1) would not be affected following an announcement by the National Institutes of Health that it had halted the Premarin (estrogen) arm of its Women's Health Initiative study because of the possible increased risk of stroke in patients.

The hormone replacement therapy Premarin/Prempro is one of the Madison, N.J.-based Wyeth's major drug franchises. The NIH had previously halted a separate arm of the study focusing on Prempro (estrogen and progestin) in mid-2002, after detecting an increased risk of breast cancer. After that study, sales of the Premarin/Prempro franchise were cut nearly in half, falling to $1.3 billion in 2003 from $2.1 billion in 2001.

While S&P said it believes that sales of the Premarin/Prempro franchise will continue to shrink, they will fall at a much slower rate, as concerns regarding the use of hormone replacement therapies have already been largely reflected in the sales decline.

In the meantime, the continued strong sales growth of Wyeth's other leading franchises, such as Effexor, Protonix, and Enbrel, outweigh S&P's concerns about the Premarin/Prempro franchise.

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