| AstraZeneca to Slash Jobs Despite Growth
AstraZeneca PLC announced it will slash 3,000 jobs over the next three years despite reporting its third successive year of earnings growth Thursday, stressing that it still needs to improve its weak pipeline of future drugs. The drug maker, which is facing patent challenges and escalating generic competition, revealed the job cuts as part of a US$500 million (euro384.02 million) three-year revamp of its supply chain as it said that sales growth would continue at a slower pace this year. Net profit for the three months to Dec. 31 rose 17 percent to US$1.4 billion (euro1.08 billion), from US$1.2 billion a year earlier, AstraZeneca said. Revenue rose 14 percent to US$7.2 billion (euro5.56 billion). For the full year, profits rose 28.5 percent to US$6.04 billion (euro4.66 billion), while revenue lifted 11 percent to US$26.8 billion (euro20.69 billion), marking the third year of growth since the expiration of a number of key patents in 2003.
Dealing with gastric ulcers
It is widely believed that eating chilli causes gastric ulcers in some people and they are adviced to avoid the spice and eat bland food. But an epidemiological survey conducted in Singapore in 1994 shows that the incidence of gastric ulcers is more common among the Chinese than among Indians who eat far more chillis.
In 1984, ulcer patients in a Delhi hospital were given 1gm chilli powder/meal in the three meals consumed per day along with a healing agent, showed no adverse effect of chilli on healing as observed by endoscopic examination.
Peptic (gastric and duodenal) ulcers are the most common afflicting humans all over the world and considered to be caused when there is an imbalance between the rate of gastric secretion and level of protection. Smoking causes ulcers because it stimulates nerves involved in gastric secretions.
Second straight record for Dow
Stocks jumped Friday, sending the Dow to its second straight record close after a rally in technology and commodity shares. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (up 41.10 to 12,556.08, Charts) gained 0.3 percent, closing at an all-time high for the second session in a row. .
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