Cash Rich AstraZeneca pacifying stock holders with 5bn dollar buy back, while continuing criminal business as usual

Cash Rich AstraZeneca pacifying stock holders with 5 bn dollar buy back, while continuing their criminal business as usual model. If you haven't gotten the message by now, AstraZeneca has bought some powerful friends in very high places within our government. Especially when you look at the puny amounts they have paid in fines to walk away unscathed from a throng of unconscionable crimes without admitting any guilt or wrong doing; and then went on to pay even less to those persons health & lives they have destroyed or ended by their unsafe products and unscrupulous business practices. You only can just begin to fathom the depth of greed and conspired evil intent involved in this elitist masquerade that has been perpetrated against the citizens of America, and others from around the world.

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From The Independent

AstraZeneca to return billions to shareholders

Cash-rich drugs giant to keep investors happy with another huge buyback worth up to $5bn 

Mark Leftly and Laura Chesters Sunday January 29, 2012  

AstraZeneca, the FTSE 100 pharmaceuticals giant, will announce an estimated $3bn (£2bn) extension to its share buyback programme this week.

A hugely cash generative business, AstraZeneca has been keeping investors happy over the past two years by purchasing $2.1bn of shares in 2010 and around $4bn in 2011. The group will confirm another round of share buybacks in its full-year results this week, with the consensus expectation $3bn and analysts at UBS expecting as much as $5bn.

Savvas Neophytou, analyst at Panmure Gordon, said he had a "conservative" forecast – this still came to $1.5bn – as he felt that AstraZeneca might hold back some cash for acquisitions. He added: "The

share buyback programme will be extended for sure. There are also a number of opportunities for the company to invest in."

However, AstraZeneca, whose chief executive is David Brennan, right, has faced some disappointments recently in its drug pipeline. For example, its latest blockbuster drug (those likely to have sales of more than $1bn) is expected to be the diabetes treatment Dapagliflozin, but the US Food and Drug Administration has demanded more clinical trials before giving approval. The UBS analysts expect fourth-quarter sales to be fractionally down on the previous year at $8.611bn.

Michael Mitchell, healthcare analyst at Seymour Pierce, said that there was a "question over whether a better use of money" would be investing in new drugs or buying companies with strong research and development records.