Fourth-quarter earnings reports from J&J, Novartis, AbbVie and Biogen all missed on sales but more worryingly, lower sales from some recent acquisitions contributed to the missed expectations. The time from child star to problem child seems to be shorter than I remember.

P&G launches a promotional campaign for the first digital test that can indicate a woman’s peak four days of ovulation under the Clearblue brand, which it markets for manufacturer SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics.

P&G launches a promotional campaign for the first digital test that can indicate a woman’s peak four days of ovulation under the Clearblue brand, which it markets for manufacturer SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics.

Pharma is keenly interested in new cancer diagnostics tools, which in many cases are aimed at selecting the best therapy for a specific patient, measuring response to therapy and predicting or more sensitively measuring relapse. These technologies are often the same as those used in pharma's drug development efforts. But deciding with whom and how to ally for the development and distribution of tests is difficult, showing just how uncharted, and bumpy, is the current diagnostics terrain.