Sanofi Wins Antitrust Suit; Morgan Stanley Raises Outlook

(MoneyWatch)  A day of double good news for Sanofi-Aventis: First, its stock took a nice jump after Morgan Stanley raised its assessment of the company to "overweight" (meaning buy more stocks, not that it's fat). Second, the company beat off an antitrust lawsuit filed by Louisiana Wholesale Drug Co. over the drug Arava, for rheumatoid arthritis.

Morgan Stanley said:

At current levels, we believe the market is discounting the very significant negative structural issues we have highlighted over the last 12-18 months, such as generic exposure, anemic pipeline, and talent loss to peers. We see two sources of near-term upside - further near-term cost reduction with new chief executive likely to rein in R&D expense and delayed generic entry for Lovenox and Plavix.

Sanofi's lawyers, Jones Day, gave little detail regarding the antitrust action:

Jones Day successfully defended Sanofi-Aventis U.S., LLC in an antitrust jury trial in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The jury unanimously vindicated sanofi-aventis's filing of a Citizen Petition before the Food and Drug Administration in relation to Abbreviated New Drug Applications for leflunomide, a rheumatoid arthritis medication.