A U.S. clinical study suggests that just half a dose of the Novartis AG H1N1 vaccine may be enough to generate a protective immune response, the Swiss drugmaker said on Tuesday.

Serbia's health authorities have ordered three million swine flu vaccines from Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis AG worth an estimated euro24 million ($36 million).

GlaxoSmithKline has won U.S. marketing approval to sell an unadjuvanted H1N1 swine vaccine, allowing it to ship relatively modest amounts of scarce vaccine to the United States next month.

GlaxoSmithKline has yet to get U.S. government approval for its swine flu vaccine, the company said Tuesday, while Novartis said it was still struggling to make vaccines.

Stocks advanced Thursday as investors seemed to focus more on some big-name earnings beats and a rise in leading indicators instead of a disappointing jobless report. Travelers and MMM led the Dow.

Swiss drug giant Novartis says it has redeployed 300 workers from other divisions into its vaccines unit to meet what Chairman and CEO Dr. Daniel Vasella calls the "huge demand" for H1N1 shots.

Stocks advanced Thursday as investors seemed to focus more on some big-name earnings beats and a rise in leading indicators instead of a disappointing jobless report.

Stocks slipped Thursday as investors weighed a disappointing jobless-claims report and some encouraging earnings reports.

Earnings continue to come in largely above expectations, but other factors are waylaying the stock market's recent advances - ranging from Walmart's price cuts to analyst Richard Bove's downgrade of Wells Fargo to rising oil prices. 

Novartis is buying back the rights to a schizophrenia pill that it sold to another company years ago after it decided the drug wasn't worth pursuing.

Major US companies are bracing for a potentially stronger strain of swine flu this year that could threaten the nation's already fragile economic recovery.

The Food and Drug Administration approved the new swine flu vaccine Tuesday, a long-anticipated step as the government works to get vaccinations under way next month.

As the Markey-Waxman bill on carbon emissions cap-and-trade makes it way through the Senate, a new carbon-counting reality may soon be here for American businesses.

As flu season goes into high gear in the southern hemisphere, the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security is preparing for a potential flu outbreak in the United States, according to its top official.

Government experts called for sweeping safety restrictions Tuesday on the most widely used painkiller, including reducing the maximum dose of Tylenol and eliminating prescription drugs such as Vicodin and Percocet.