Earnings

After announcing round after round of layoffs, AstraZeneca CEO David Brennan announced Thursday that he, too, was joining the ranks of the unemployed. His announcement was a bookend to the first quarter results which showed the oncoming pain of a very steep patent black hole: sales were $7.3 billion for the quarter ended March 31, an 11% drop compared to sales for the same period last year.

Despite plummeting Zyprexa sales and a forecast of tough times yet to come, Eli Lilly remained upbeat during Wednesday's first-quarter earnings call. Meanwhile, GlaxoSmithKline's CEO Andrew Witty said Wednesday that the $10.5 billion in sales his firm earned for the first quarter of 2012, a 2% bump over the same period last year, is a sign that the company's progress is on track.

GlaxoSmithKline continues to shed businesses, but can't shake its weight-loss drug Alli (orlistat).

Days after a $158 million settlement of charges that its Janssen unit fraudulently marketed Risperdal in Texas, Johnson & Johnson forecast fourth-quarter net earnings of just $218 million due to settlement costs and the recall of its DePuy ASR artificial hip.