Simcere receives buyout offer from founder, ex CEO

Shares of Simcere Pharmaceutical Group jumped Monday after the Chinese drug developer said it received a buyout offer from its founder and chairman.

Simcere said Jinsheng Ren has organized a buyer group that includes a company he controls, New Good Management Ltd., and Assure Ahead Investments Ltd. to acquire all outstanding shares of Simcere that the group does not currently own for $9.56 per American Depositary Share. That represents a premium of 20 percent to the stock's closing price Friday of $7.96.

Simcere makes and sells pharmaceuticals in China, and focuses on the treatment of diseases that have high incidence or mortality rates like cancer, strokes or cardiovascular diseases.

The company said it formed a special committee of independent directors to consider the offer, and no decisions have been made. A brief statement from the company does not state the total value of the offer.

Ren founded the company in 1995 and had served as Simcere's CEO until last fall, when the company named Hongquan Liu to replace him.

Company shares climbed to $1.11, or 13.9 percent, to $9.11 per ADS in morning trading Monday. That was near the upper end of their 52-week range of $7.25 to $9.47.

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UPDATE 2-Hospira receives FDA notice over medical device problems

* Rocky Mount plant back to capacity in 2013 - Hospira

* Q4 adjusted eps 55 cents vs Street view 54 cents

* Expects 2013 sales up 1 pct to 3 pct, adjusted diluted eps of $2.05-$2.20

Feb 13 (Reuters) - Hospira Inc, a hospital products maker that has grappled with regulatory issues at manufacturing plants for the past 18 months, said it had received a notice over the quality of its medical devices from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The company reported the notice during a conference call on Wednesday after announcing a profit for the fourth quarter versus a year-earlier loss as sales of generic injectable drugs, IV solutions, drug pumps and other products increased more than 8 percent.

Hospira said the FDA completed an inspection of its medical device quality systems at its headquarters in Lake Forest, Illinois, last month and issued a list of 10 objectionable conditions. The list is known in the industry as a Form 483.

The company also said it sent notices to customers about some of its infusion pumps that had to either be recalled, fixed or adjusted. Hospira did not disclose the scope of the action nor the exact product models.

Shares in Hospira fell 67 cents to $34.28 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Chief Executive F. Michael Ball said that FDA inspectors acknowledged some progress since the last inspection.

"The observations re-enforced our own assessment there is still a lot of work to be done within our device operations," Ball said on the conference call.

He said management had been doing a complete review of all of its medical devices even before the FDA notice. He said the new strategy would be aimed at modernizing and streamlining platforms.

Ball said there has been progress at some of its other manufacturing facilities that have had problems, including its Rocky Mount facility in North Carolina. Ball said a reinspection by the FDA would be extensive and lengthy but he expects it to resume production at full capacity this year.

He said Hospira's other plants emerged from shut downs on schedule.

Hospira's Clayton, North Carolina facility has resumed manufacturing propofol, an anesthesia that is administered intravenously and has been in short supply, and is building inventory in the fourth quarter of 2012 for an early 2013 relaunch.

He said the drug was being priced at a premium.

Hospira said it expects sales to rise 1 percent to 3 percent for 2013, and adjusted earnings per diluted share to be between $2.05 and $2.20.

Management said the relatively wide range is based on the expected rate of supply recovery and share gains, as well as improvements in quality and manufacturing performance.

In the fourth quarter, its net income was $5.3 million, or 3 cents per share, in the latest quarter, compared with a net loss of $214.0 million, or $1.30 per share, in the year-earlier period.

Adjusted earnings were 55 cents per share. On that basis, analysts on average were expecting earnings per share of 54 cents.

Net sales rose to $1.1 billion in the quarter from $1.0 billion a year before.

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Congressman Receives Threats From Gun Advocates Warning Him To ‘Watch His Back’

Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN), gun safety advocate who represents “real gun country,” told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Saturday that his office is receiving anonymous threats, warning the Congressman to watch his back.

“I have never, ever in all my life feared for my security, and I’m not fearful of it now,” Nolan began. “But I’m a little more [fearful] than I ever had been before. We’ve been getting a lot of not very thinly veiled threats and calls into my office. You know, things like, ‘you tell Nolan he better watch his back’”:

NOLAN: Nobody has actually come out and said they’re gunning for me, but the messages are quite angry, vitriolic, and a little bit frightening to people at my front desk who have been taking the calls. I’m a little nervous about it. I’ve never been nervous before. [The NRA] are very toxic in the effect they’re having on the American public.

Watch it:

Nolan added that during his Congressional campaign, NRA Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre, crisscrossed his district telling voters with hunting licenses that he “is going to take your guns away.”

Since the shooting in Newton, Connecticut, the NRA’s efforts have only intensified. The organization cast its opposition to President Obama’s gun safety regulations as “the fight of the century,” circulating a letter characterizing Obama’s proposals as “about banning your guns … PERIOD!” “Barack Obama, Joe Biden and their gun ban allies in Congress only want to BLAME you, VILIFY you, BULLY you, and STRIP you of your Second Amendment freedoms,” the letter says. NRA President David Keene even blamed Obama for the death threats the organization received.

But while the NRA’s over-the-top rhetoric and tactics have polluted the gun debate, Nolan sees “a big change in national sentiment” in favor of sensible gun safety reforms. “Not only are people in urban areas concerned but people in rural areas are, too,” he said. “They understand that you don’t need an assault rifle to shoot a duck or to protect your home.”

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