Schering-Plough shares drop after Reuters reports cholesterol drugs data

Reuters was alone on Dec. 18 with headlines about a sharp drop in the use of two blockbuster cholesterol drugs sold by drug makers Schering-Plough and Merck. Schering`s shares, which had been down 2.4 pct, immediately fell another 2.4 percent and finished the day down 5 percent. As Schering provided raw prescription data in an SEC filing, Reuters quickly interpreted the data and noticed there was a 9.5 pct drop in monthly prescriptions for the drugs, Vytorin and Zetia, whose performance has been closely watched by investors. Neither Bloomberg nor Dow Jones matched the headlines.