Pfizer setback

The world's largest drug company is facing some turbulence after a large human trial of its cholesterol drug candidate torcetrapib was abandoned. The 2 December announcement that the trial would end, due to an unexpectedly high death rate among its participants, caused Pfizers's shares to fall from almost $28 to $25, knocking about $20 billion off its market capitulation. Analysts say that the New York-based company may be forced to revisit its entire corporate strategy as vital revenue earners — such as cholesterol drug Lipitor, the world's biggest selling drug, which torcetrapib was intended to replace — come off patent.

Swiss role

Oerlikon, a Zurich-based engineering company, has won a SFr320 million (US$268 million) to equip a huge solar-cell factory in Offenbach, Germany. The plant, which is being built by Saudi-backed solar-cell producer API, will be able to build enough cells to install 160 megawatts of electricity-generating capacity each year. The order reflects growing demand for solar cells: Oerlikon said in a statement that its solar business — which uses cheaper, amorphous silicon instead of the pure crystals used on most photovoltaic cells — was “exceeding all expectations”.

Not ticking

Shares in British biotechnology company Evolutec plunged by three-quarters after its drug candidate rEV131, which is extracted from tick saliva, failed in a human trial for the treatment of hay fever. The company, a spin-off of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Oxford, UK, is continuing to test the drug for other uses, including the treatment of eye inflammation after cataract surgery (see Nature 439, 533; 2006). Mark Carnegie Brown, the company's chief executive, said the trial failure was “tremendously disappointing”.