Amgen

Pfizer has big expectations for its oral rheumatoid arthritis treatment Xeljanz--about $3 billion worth. But those expectations were struck a serious blow when European Medicines Agency regulators Thursday turned it down for approval.

China and India may top the list of fastest-growing pharma markets, but Brazil is no slouch, either. Drugmakers are wheeling and dealing there at an increasingly faster pace, as companies like Merck and Reckitt Benckiser join old-timers like Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline in beefing up there.

Amgen has inked another marketing settlement with the U.S. government. The biotech giant agreed to pay $24.9 million to wrap up allegations that it used kickbacks to induce long-term care pharmacies to use more of its Aranesp anemia drug--and not only for patients with anemia caused by chronic kidney failure, the drug's officially approved use.

Amgen's new CEO scored a big raise when he was promoted last year. Robert Bradway took over from ex-chief Kevin Sharer at the end of May, and by year's end, he had racked up $13.57 million in compensation for the year, almost twice what he made in 2011 as president and COO. And his predecessor's pay dropped by half, knocking him off our list of highest-paid biopharma executives.

Amgen puzzled some industry watchers in late 2012 when the biotech giant unexpectedly pulled the trigger on a buyout of DNA research trendsetter deCODE Genetics.

With the first knockoffs of biotech drugs in the U.S. expected in the coming years, providers of the novel biologics such as Amgen and Genentech have pushed for state legislation that makes doctors and pharmacies clear hurdles before approved biosimilars are used in place of the originals.