The big news of the morning at least was the MNKD data and all we need now is GTXI to complete the trifecta. The markets were a little better in that biotechs did not seem as weak, although I would not say are quite turning the corner. In fact, as the market turned down it […]
Week’s Option Activity (8/5~8/9)
The following stocks had notable activity in their options during the past week: $PBTH (8/7): Active day in the Calls. 500 AUG 5.0 strike Calls (stock at $6.86) were purchased for 2.05 or $102,500 – buyer makes money if stock trades north of $7.05 by August expiration. Also, 500 FEB14 7.50 strike Calls were sold […]
August 13- EOD
Very little news of interest today. The markets continue to be a low volume chop fest with biotechs tending to bear the brunt of the selling. I think a lot of the bios are going to need to see their 50 or 200 day moving averages before finding significant support and I would not be […]
Three European biotech companies building value through partnerships
Galapagos NV Galapagos (Brussels: GLPG; Pink Sheets: GLPYY.PK) is a Belgian biotech company whose lead product is JAK1 inhibitor GLPG0634 for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and Crohn’s disease (CD). Jason covered the drug in this article. Since then, the company has presented more data at various forums; the latest was EULAR in June. They have multiple […]
August 12- EOD
It looks like we are setting up to have a week of data releases with VICL today and perhaps both GTXI and MNKD later this week. It should generate some interest but none of these will likely affect biotech sentiment writ large, so they should remain stock specific stories. That being said it looks like […]
NLNK – The Fly in the Ointment at NewLink Genetics
NewLink Genetics (NASDAQ: NLNK) is a company which has risen dramatically on the backs of datasets that on the surface may surprise most in the field. These trials have been lauded by executives as game changers and caused much excitement among patient communities. However, upon further review, we believe the data appear seemingly too good […]
VICL – Quick take on Vical’s Allovectin failure
(With Patrick Crutcher) Today Vical (NASDAQ: VICL) reported top-line data from a Phase III trial of Allovectin-7 (A7) in patients with advanced melanoma. As we predicted in this article, the trial failed. A7 not only didn’t meet the survival endpoint, but it also missed the primary endpoint of durable response rate. Shares of Vical fell […]
August 9- EOD
Well this was a fittingly slow day to a slow weak with much more of the same in terms of trading and performance of biotechs. They seemed to have a little more strength today but nothing exceptionally notable. There are three little tidbits that I think are interesting that might have broader implications. 1. DNDN […]
August 8- EOD
So the low volume chop fest seemed to continue today and I expect it will continue for the rest of the summer. It is really hard to say whether biotechs are generally doing better or worse than the market as we see some pretty wide swings on little volume. It seems like they are underperforming […]
August 7- EOD
We have a combination of low volume and negative near term sentiment and thus biotechs have been weak. Most of the selling looks to be on low volume, so it is difficult to know whether this is the start of a broader trend that will pick up steam (and volume) or simply a pause that […]
SRPT – Sarepta Quick Commentary
It Has Everything And Nothing To Do With Dystrophin Investors have been intensely focused on Sarepta CEO Chris Garabedian’s July 24 “Regulatory Update”, parsing each sentence as if it were one of Bernanke’s speeches. The call went generally as expected: following discussions with the FDA, Sarepta announced plans around an NDA filing based on Phase […]
August 6- EOD
Another quiet day on the biotech news front, where the only real news of interest was the REGN earnings. The REGN miss and weak market not surprisingly led to a rather broad based weakness in biotech. Outside of that there is really nothing significant to talk about but the news can pick up over the […]
Week’s Option Activity (7/29~8/2)
The following stocks had notable activity in their options during the past week: $IBB (7/30): 2,500 SEP 190.0/(180.0) strike Put spreads (ETF at $197) were bought for 2.30 or total debit of $575,000. The SEP 190.0 strike Puts were bought for 4.00 and the SEP 180.0 strike Puts were sold for 1.70 against. Buyer makes […]
August 5- EOD
It was actually a quiet start to the week but there are a couple of points that I want to make and issues to put on the radar. 1. I rarely talk macro but there are a couple of warning signs that are starting to become more important and they will affect the biotechs at […]
August 2- EOD
Fairly quiet day after a rather eventful week, so it is nice to have a little less to write about as we ease into the weekend. 1. I wanted to spend a little time talking about why I bought TTPH earlier this week with the TSRX proceeds. First, I wanted to keep most of the […]
MACK – Flurry of results in the second half of the year
We would like to take a closer look at the upcoming results of Merrimack Pharmaceuticals’ (MACK) lead drugs, MM-398 and MM-121. MM-398 MM-398 is a liposomal formulation of irinotecan intended for the treatment of pancreatic cancer (PC). Irinotecan is marketed by Pfizer as Camptosar® and approved for first-line treatment of colon cancer in combination with […]
August 1- EOD
Lots of good earnings and conference calls to go through. It is going to take a couple of days to sort through it all so I will try and focus on a couple of companies a day. 1. There was some discussion yesterday about SGEN and the news that the FDA will not add retreatment […]
July 31- EOD
Well, it was certainly a news filled evening and it will take a couple of days to sort through it all, so today will be a first cut. In general it was an odd day in biotech as there were certainly pockets of outperformance but the sector in general seemed weak despite the strength in […]
IBB – Technical Commentary
iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology (IBB) – Nasdaq The best indicators for our biotech portfolio are the biotechnology indices IBB, NBI, XBI or XLV. After publishing “IBB – Biotechnology Index at All Times High“, we wanted to maintain our focus on the IBB. In today’s video “IBB – Market Activity” Tony noted a large bearish bet or hedge […]
July 30th- EOD
While today seemed to have better trading action, the news was actually less interesting than Monday. There are a couple of notes but nothing quite significant. In fact, the most interesting news was in the commodities space with the Potash oligopoly seemingly about to collapse but hard to spin that into biotech. CEMP reports after […]
