Johnson & Johnson announced today it will acquire privately held Alios BioPharma for $1.75 Billion in cash, gaining rights to the mid-stage treatment for infants with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), AL-8176, and early stage nuc AL-335 for HCV. “We are excited that this acquisition will enable us to explore treatment options for a number of […]
ECYT Fails to Meet OS Endpoint; Hope Rests on Tubulysin
Endocyte presented much anticipated results from its Phase II TARGET trial of vintafolide in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) at the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress. The study compared vintafolide to vintafolide plus docetaxel, to docetaxel alone as second line treatment in folate-receptor positive patients with NSCLC. As a reminder, Vintafolide is a […]
Update on previous coverage
After a while since our last update on these stocks, we wanted to provide an update to our readers on their recent developments and what to expect in the future. Stemline (STML) The company’s shares had an excellent post-IPO performance as a result of the positive data of its drug SL-401, a modified dyphtheria […]
[Free Report] SIGA Files for Bankruptcy; NeuroDerm Files for IPO
SIGA Technologies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday as it seeks time to appeal a court order favoring PharmAthene. In an earlier ruling, the Delaware Court of Chancery found SIGA had failed to execute its licence agreement with PharmAthene relating to the smallpox drug Tecovirimar. SIGA believes the lump sum payment and damages it […]
A closer look at these veterinary stocks: PETX, KIN, PARN
Animal health (AH) is gaining more and more attention from investors as new companies go public amidst the biotech IPO frenzy. In this report, we’ll focus on three new veterinary stocks that began trading over the past few months. According to the American Pet Products Association (APPA, ref ), animal care is a market […]
GWPH: Full Throttle Ahead
GW Pharmaceuticals looks to be quite busy in the next few months as a number of trials are initiated. Rapid development along with promising initial results for epilepsy drug Epidiolex have sent shares soaring. In merely a year, the company has directed investor attention away from slow sales of its most advanced drug Sativex to […]
Merck – Preparing For The Next Move
Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK) -NYSE Lately, Merck was under the spot light after Idenix Pharmaceuticals deal, paying $3.85 Billion more than triple Idenix’s market capitalization before the deal , and to take part of the Hepatitis C battle, one of the hottest areas of drug development along with GILD, ABBV and BMY. But the […]
July 22 Biotech Update
Today and tomorrow are more of the same in that we seem to be in a holding pattern for the large cap earnings. So I will keep this short and sweet as there is not really a ton to talk about. As I have noted before, the reaction to the earnings is going to be […]
BMY – In The Inflection Point
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMY) –NYSE Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY) had a wild year, up from the lows of $41.11 in late August 2013 to reach a new 12 years high $57.49 in early March 2014, as investors were anticipating the anti PD-1 data coming at ASCO-2014 and with high expectations for BMY’s data of […]
CAR-T in the spotlight: Cellectis
Two weeks ago, Cellectis (ALCLS) and Pfizer (PFE) struck an agreement to develop new chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T-based therapies for oncology. Pfizer will pay $80M upfront and up to $185M in milestones per product plus royalties on sales. Additionally, Pfizer has acquired a 10% stake in Cellectis. Pfizer has exclusive rights to develop 15 […]
ASCO small caps: SNSS KPTI CYTR IMUC ZEL
Sunesis (SNSS) The company presented a poster of an MD Anderson-sponsored trial of its investigational drug voseroxin plus decitabine. There was intriguing data with regard to the response rates. 30 patients (pts) were evaluable for response; 13 (43%) achieved CR, 6 (20%) CRp, and 3 (10%) CRi, for an ORR of 81% with no evidence […]
June 11 Biotech Update
Another relatively slow summer day in the market in terms of trading but the sector seemed to outperform the broader market. Even with that marginal outperformance, I would not read anything new into in that I still believe that the macro is going to drive the next move. That being said I would not be […]
Biotech Fund Action in the Run Up to ASCO
(This is a guest post by Emory Redd and the disclosures are his at the bottom as well. I also apologize for the table formatting. They actually look much better in word but I cannot figure out how to get them to work in wordpress. I was running out of time to get this out […]
IBB – In the Decision Zone
iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology (IBB) – Nasdaq The best indicators for our biotech portfolios are the biotechnology indices IBB, NBI, XBI or XLV. We will maintain our focus on the IBB as the biotech barometer. And as mentioned in my last report ” IBB – Biotech Sector in The Despondency Point ” the emotions are playing an important role […]
Progenics: Consolidation Ahead of the AdCom
Progenics Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (PGNX) -Nasdaq Relistor has been approved by regulatory authorities in the U.S., countries in the E.U., Canada and Australia since 2008 for treatment of OIC in advanced-illness patients receiving palliative care when laxative therapy has not been sufficient. On May 09, 2014 Progenics announced during the 1Q earnings call an FDA Advisory Committee […]
Sunesis: little value in VALOR
Sunesis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SNSS) is expected to report top-line data from the Phase III VALOR study in the third or fourth quarter of this year. The VALOR study is testing vosaroxin plus cytarabine vs. cytarabine alone in patients with first relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (r/r AML), with survival as the primary endpoint. […]
Outlook and New Beginnings
With ASCO approaching and some major market moving events, I just wanted to provide some perspective with earnings season almost over. – I get the impression that ASCO will be largely focused on how Bristol-Myers’ competition is looking and whether a viable dosing regimen of Yervoy+Nivolumab in non-small cell lung cancer can be found that […]
April 23 Biotech Update- Shooting Out of the Earnings Gate
This was a relatively slow news day (compared to yesterday and Monday) but there is still a lot to talk about with the large cap earnings. The sector did not responsd great but it is still early and I want to see how it closes before judging this reaction. In addition, the market backdrop was […]
Dissecting the ASCO 2014 abstract titles
Today, the American Society for Clinical Oncology(ASCO) posted a link to the ASCO 2014 meeting planner[LINK]. The planner also includes all of the abstract titles at the meeting. ASCO 2014 is scheduled to take place from May 30th to June 3rd, 2014. Below we list some of our observations on the oral abstracts. We have […]
INSM – Quick take on Insmed
Insmed (NASDAQ: INSM) is expected to report top-line data from a Phase II trial of Arikace in non-tuberculosis mycobacteria (NTM) infection tomorrow morning. This is a double-blind placebo-controlled study that has recruited 90 patients and is comparing the change in semi-quantitative mycobacterial culture density on a seven-point scale from baseline to the end of treatment […]
