Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s Euro-Denominated Senior Unsecured Note Issuance Rated 'A+'

BOSTON (Standard&Poor's) April 29, 2015--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services today assigned its 'A+' issue-level rating to Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s Euro-denominated senior unsecured notes. The notes will repay existing Euro-denominated debt and will be leverage-neutral. Our 'A+' corporate credit rating on Bristol-Myers reflects the company's well-established position in an array of high-margin pharmaceutical markets. Strong positions in the oncology, cardiovascular, and virology market illustrates growing therapeutic diversity, while six drugs with sales in excess of $1 billion attest to product diversity. We assess business risk as "strong". We expect sales of Abilify to decline following the U.S. patent expiration. In addition, we think the launch of a generic competitor to Baraclude will also negatively affect 2015 revenues. However, we

...BOSTON (Standard & Poor's) April 29, 2015--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services today assigned its 'A+' issue-level rating to Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s Euro-denominated senior unsecured notes. The notes will repay existing Euro-denominated debt and will be leverage-neutral. Our 'A+' corporate credit rating on Bristol-Myers reflects the company's well-established position in an array of high-margin pharmaceutical markets. Strong positions in the oncology, cardiovascular, and virology market illustrates growing therapeutic diversity, while six drugs with sales in excess of $1 billion attest to product diversity. We assess business risk as "strong". We expect sales of Abilify to decline following the U.S. patent expiration. In addition, we think the launch of a generic competitor to Baraclude will also negatively affect 2015 revenues. However, we believe the decline in total sales will only be temporary as other existing and newly approved products continue to grow. The notes issuance is leverage-neutral...

Ratings Action