Another day, another upgrade. Today, it’s Citi increasing its target from $71 to $200. It would seem all the analyst must rely on the same numbers. The thesis here is Pharmasset’s lead wholly owned compound, PSI-7977, could get on the market as early as 2014 and the company could become profitable by 2016. Those are […]
Pharmasset Price Targets at $200 and $175
Last Tuesday, JPMorgan raised the target price for Pharmasset stock from $100 to a whopping $200. Brean Murray followed that up today by initiating with a $175 target. That is quite an increase from today’s closing price of $100.87 and 52-week high of $110.58. The company already sports a market cap of some $3.75 billion. […]
Good News For Pfizer Oral RA Drug
Pfizer announced results from two clinical trials of its JAK inhibitor, tofacitinib for rheumatoid arthritis at the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) in London on Wednesday. One study, a Phase III trial called ORAL Sync compared tofacitinib plus methotrexate to methotrexate alone in 792 patients with moderate to sever active RA who had an inadequate […]
Platform and Specialty Pharmaceutical Companies can bolster Big Pharma
The pharmaceutical industry is in a weak state, with an impending “patent cliff” that is forcing Big Pharma to reorganize and refocus. In 2011, roughly $20 billion in branded US sales dollars are “at risk” to patent expiry and generic competition. The pinnacle will be reached in 2013 and will subside after 2015. Fiscal Year […]
Oncogenex Jumps In Anticipation To ASCO
Oncogenex stock has been range-bound for over half a year but finally found some life today, jumping 18%. The company will be preventing three posters together with Teva June 4-6 at ASCO around its lead anti-cancer drug Custirsen. Custirsen has shown in Phase II trials the ability to extend survival and reduce pain in prostate […]
Rumors, Rumors
It would appear Cubist has its choice of partners. Ever since it settled its patent dispute over its antibiotic, Cubicin, with Teva early last month, the company seems to have been put in play. Under terms of the settlement, Teva will not launch a generic until at least 2017, and even then, will buy the […]
Sanofi Ditches New R&D Model For Newer Model
When Eias Zerhouni, head of Sanofi’s R&D arrived at the company, he set about changing the company’s large pharma research model to a more “biotech” like one in an attempt to be more creative and nimble. However, Eias has just realized that discovering drugs is more difficult than he had originally thought. No worries- there […]
Most Innovative Pharmaceutical Companies
From 2006 through 2010, 112 new drugs were approved by the FDA at an average rate of 22.4 approvals per year; there wasn’t much variance- 23 in 2006, 19 in 2007, 23 in 2008, 26 in 2009, and 21 in 2010. (In fact, an average of 23 new molecular entities (NMEs) per year were approved […]
Neurogesx and Depomed seek to persuade pain specialists
I attended a recent medical conference where pain specialists outlined the history and direction of the pain industry, covering both nociceptive and neuropathic pain. After the conference, I had a chance to talk one-on-one with several pain specialists. I asked for their input on the industry and several products that I found particularly promising. […]
Pfizer moves forward with Pristiq for Hot Flashes
Last week, Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) announced that they had presented results from sub-study of Pristiq (desvenlafaxine) at the 59th annual clinical meeting of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). The results were from a large, phase 3 trial, that sought to elaborate the safety and efficacy of Pristiq for the use in hot flashes […]
Micromet Leads In Bispecific Antibodies, Watch For DARTs
Bispecific antibodies are another front in the race to modify therapeutic antibodies for increased efficacy. Unlike normal antibodies, bispecifics are able to recognize and bind two or even three different antigens. The modified antibodies have new attributes allowing them to perform functions inconceivable for standard antibodies. The pursuit of bispecific antibodies began at least two […]
GSK: What To Do With ViiV
Great story came out May 6 from Reuters, reporting that Morgan Stanley analysts recently told investors a ViiV IPO or spinoff could be beneficial for GSK and the Pfizer/GSK joint venture. ViiV was formed in 2009 to wrap together GSK and Pfizer’s HIV drug assets under the premise that a separate entity would allow for […]
Vertex is Overvalued
Don’t get me wrong here, I think Vertex’s telaprevir is an incredible development that will usher in a new era in HCV treatment. Current estimates of the HCV market are about $2.5 billion, with the number increasing 4-fold as new therapies enter the market- that’s potentially $10 billion, getting close to the $15 billion expected […]
Pharmasset Stock Triples- Have We Seen This Before?
Pharmasset stock has risen from $33 to $100 in the last six months on the back of impressive data for its lineup of HCV antiviral drug candidates. The company specializes in a class of compounds known as nucleoside polymerase inhibitors. Its most advanced compound, RG7128 is partnered with Roche. PSI-7977 and PSI-938 are its two […]
Depomed’s research posters and presentations from recent medical conferences
Depomed, Inc. (NASDAQ:DEPO) presented two analyses of phase 3 clinical data of Gralise™, a once-daily formulation of gabapentin for management of postherpetic neuralgia, at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN). Below is a poster, presented at AAN, that concludes that there was no effect of previous treatment with gabapentin and […]
Incyte Or YM Biosciences, Which JAK To Choose?
Advances in treatment for myelofibrosis (MF) have come by leaps and bounds in the last few years since the discovery of the activating mutation JAK2V617F in myeloproliferative disorders including MF, polycythemia vera, and essential thrombocytopenia. Incyte’s JAK inhibitor, ruxolitinib (INCB018424), looks to be the first drug to reach approval for the disorder, but a slew […]
Adeona Pharma released results
Information on Adeona Pharmaceuticals (AMEX:AEN) Adeona Poster: http://www.adeonapharma.com/AANposter.pdf Adeona Conference Call: http://j.mp/hEXdw7 Adam Feurestein’s Article on Adeona: here
Lack Of New Antibiotics: How Severe Is The Problem?
An analysis from the British Medical Journal (BMJ) titled Stoking the antibiotics pipeline noted only 1.6 % of drugs in development by the world’s 15 largest pharmaceutical companies were antibiotics. The author blames this lack of investment on several things including current practice dictating that older generics are used as first line treatments while new […]
