BUSINESS WATCH

摘要

First-quarter earnings by large pharmaceutical companies exceeded analysts' expectations. But many companies have lowered their predictions for the rest of the year to incorporate the effects of US health-care reform. In the long term, the reform should provide drug manufacturers with more customers, but its measures this year include higher price rebates for patients in the government's Medicaid insurance plan. Overall, pharmaceutical stocks dipped below the Dow Jones Industrial Average in mid-February as the US health-care legislation took shape, and have remained there since (see chart).