The OTC drug private label giant's share price increased as much as 5% in heavy trading May 31 after the release a day earlier of its complete 2017 first-quarter earnings statement and its announcement of $1.4bn in tender offers for credit notes due starting in 2021.

Merck & Co.’s silence on an OTC version of Singulair is a sign of the relatively “quiet” 2015 switch market despite the call for novel switches, particularly to treat chronic conditions, from FDA’s Nonprescription Drug Safe Use Regulatory Expansion Initiative.

Nutritional product business had 5.1% Q1 sales growth and is like Abbott’s other segments, “super well-aligned to the global demographics and trends in health care,” says CEO Ford. But as it defends complaints of damages from powder formulas made at facility found with unsafe levels of bacterial contaminants, Abbott’s also targeted in litigation alleging failure to warn about risk of infants born prematurely developing necrotizing enterocolitis if fed cow’s milk-based formula.