Bulletin: AbbVie Inc. Ratings Unaffected By Trial Results Of Oncology Drug

NEW YORK (S&P Global Ratings) March 23, 2018--S&P Global Ratings said today that its ratings and outlook on AbbVie Inc. (A-/Stable/A-1) are not affected by yesterday's news that the pharmaceutical company will not seek accelerated approval for oncology treatment Rova-T for third-line relapsed/refractory small cell lung cancer after consultation with the FDA. The company stated that it will continue to conduct its MERU and TAHOE trials to test the drug as a first-line and second-line small cell lung cancer treatment. The news, although a credit negative, does not meaningfully affect our projections for 2018 and 2019. It could cause the company to become more aggressive in terms of acquisitions, but AbbVie has a fair amount of capacity in the rating,

...NEW YORK (S&P Global Ratings) March 23, 2018--S&P Global Ratings said today that its ratings and outlook on AbbVie Inc. (A-/Stable/A-1) are not affected by yesterday's news that the pharmaceutical company will not seek accelerated approval for oncology treatment Rova-T for third-line relapsed/refractory small cell lung cancer after consultation with the FDA. The company stated that it will continue to conduct its MERU and TAHOE trials to test the drug as a first-line and second-line small cell lung cancer treatment. The news, although a credit negative, does not meaningfully affect our projections for 2018 and 2019. It could cause the company to become more aggressive in terms of acquisitions, but AbbVie has a fair amount of capacity in the rating, assuming it balances acquisitions with share repurchases. The company announced a $10 billion share repurchase program in February. Only a rating committee may determine a rating action and this report does not constitute a rating action....

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