http://biz.yahoo.com/bizwk/010322/7bux2owarobm4py5sbmh_w.html

Prevnar, a vaccine for pneumoccocal infections, earned $211 million in the fourth quarter of 2000 and was the most financially successful vaccine launch ever. AHP dominates the field of vaccine makers, which is both a blessing and curse since manufacturing vaccines is tricky, and regulators keep a watchful eye. In 1999, for example, AHP’s Rotavirus vaccine was recalled after it caused bowel obstruction in babies.

“VERY ATTRACTIVE.” Also, vaccine manufacturing is a low-margin business, where sales hit a ceiling fairly quickly. “I don’t think vaccines generally become blockbusters, but run as more or less a separate business within the organization,” says Cambridge’s

Schoonveld. But CEO Essner stresses that AHP has no plans to get out of the vaccine business: “There’s tremendous health benefit and commercial importance [in vaccines] to a company like ours. We think they are very attractive.”

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