Pfizer agreed to pay $620 million to acquire rights to Aventis’s Campto cancer drug in a transaction to gain antitrust approval for Aventis’s takeover by Sanofi-Synthelabo.

Pharmaceuticals-giant Sanofi-Synthelabo formally today announced plans to create the world’s third largest pharmaceutical company after making a new, “friendly” bid for the Franco-German Aventis company worth €54bn.

GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Europe’s biggest drug maker, said it agreed to buy two anti-blood clot treatments from France’s Sanofi-Synthelabo for €453 million ($544 million) in cash.

Encouraging words from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan sent stocks soaring today as investors looked forward with renewed enthusiasm to upcoming earnings reports.