The price of shares in British drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline plunged today on concerns about generic competition and the impact of the merger of rivals Pfizer and Pharmacia.
Shares in the group lost 7.1 per cent of their value to 1,092 pence in early afternoon trading, on a market 1.7 per cent lower overall.
Dealers said the losses were largely caused by an announcement by Swiss pharmaceutical group Novartis yesterday that it would launch Amoxicillin, a generic version of GlaxoSmithKline's Augmentin antibiotic, in the US.