Walter Armstrong, Senior Editor

A novel joint venture between Glaxo and Pfizer is big on promise. But the combined portfolio and pipeline of HIV drugs? Not so much.

The morning's other big M&A news comes out of the Bay Area biotech industry, where Gilead Sciences announced that will purchase CV Therapeutics for $1.4 billion.

With cancer pharma?s most competitive category, the big news from the annual oncology confab can big changes in the market outlook. Two Decision Resources analyst round it up and break it down.

Badly wounded by mounting fears of its safety profile and plunging prescriptions, Pfizer?s novel smoking-cessation drug that promised blockbuster sales is now fighting for its life?with a no-holds-barred ad and PR campaign.

MedTrust Online is pitching customized Web sites linking primary-care physicians to one another, oncology specialists, and a trove of medical content has grabbed a lot of press. Can it fly?

It's that time of year again, when Santas everywhere take stock of nice and naughty in order to fill stockings-and magazines make up their lists of hits and has-beens.