I'm Bob Moon for Marketplace. Daimler shares closed down 2.6 percent in New York today. Meanwhile, shares of Aetna rose 11 and a half percent, after the big insurance company announced that it's laying off 13 percent of its workforce. That's 5000 jobs. A deal that would create the world's biggest drug company has scored a major drug victory, as Tanya Ott reports from the Marketplace HealthDesk.
Analysts say approval is likely.
This is just the latest in a sweeping round of mergers and consolidations which drug industry analyst Hemant Shah says won't last forever. Their future growth is going to be much, much slower. It was, however, held up by Federal Trade Commission questions about the combined companies' power in certain markets. SmithKline had to sell off several products to get FTC approval. From the WGBH HealthDesk, I'm Tanya Ott for Marketplace.