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LONDON (AP) - Shares in pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca PLC soared Tuesday on news that an agreement with an Indian company will delay the release of a generic competitor to its best selling heartburn drug for six years.
AstraZeneca said financial guidance for 2008 would remain unchanged, but the company's shares shot up almost 9 percent as analysts sensed less of a profit risk for the London-based drug maker.
India's Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. had submitted an application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to make a generic version of esomeprazole magnesium, the active pharmaceutical ingredient in heartburn medicine Nexium.
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