This year’s annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH13) is highly anticipated for a number of reasons. With the general market for the healthcare/biotech sector at all-time highs on the backs of Pharmacyclic’s Ibrutinib (stock is up 1000% since ASH11), Celgene’s Revlimid (~67% of their $6.3B 2013 revenue) and Amgen’s $10.6B deal for […]
ASH 2013 Preview on Lymphoid Malignancies
This year’s annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology(ASH13) is highly anticipated for a number of reasons. Pharmacyclic’s Ibrutinib could be viewed as one of the several catalysts sparking the biotech sector’s run the past 2 years. They are now within months of receiving approval for 2 indications where they could benefit patient lives […]
November 5- EOD
The morning looked bad but the sector came back a little. There was some sporadic buying of oncology names but nothing major. It will be very interesting to see how the sector responds to the ASH abstracts. Obviously there will be winners and losers but the question in my mind is how will the PPS […]
October 29- EOD
Well, it seemed like an odd day for the sector in that it was almost directionless. This is not to say that there were not moves among individual stocks but we are finally starting to see them move on merit and less on sector sentiment. I think this is a good sign and hopefully we […]
October 10-EOD
Macro, macro, macro but now it is to the other way. We did have another big piece of news hit last night in terms of CLL, which I will talk about for today’s note. 1. The news of the day (or actually last night) was the halting of the GILD idelalisib trial of previously treated […]
Quick comments on Achillion and TG Therapeutics
(with Jason Chew) In biotech, all too often are investors given news on Friday that is not so good. With many updates expected by the end of the quarter, someone was bound to have the honors of being one of those companies. Today we had quite bad news out of Achillion and an update from […]
What to look for at AASLD 2013
We wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the presentations at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. This conference takes place Friday, November 1st thru Tuesday, November 5th and covers . Research interest in new therapies against the hepatitis C virus(HCV) still remain high, although […]
July 26-EOD
It was a relatively quiet day on the news front outside of the hep-C space where there as some news on both VRTX and GILD. Not much happening in the afternoon, so wrapping it up a little early. 1. VRTX announced that the FDA put a clinical hold on their all oral trial using VX-135. […]
July 22- EOD
It is more of the same in that the market is a little quiet on news. I expected that there would be something interesting to talk about today but not so much. That being said there are a couple of items that I think might be important to note. 1. There has been a lot […]
July 16- EOD
Seemed like a slow news day as the markets pulled back to consolidate some of the recent moves. Biotechs were not immune to the move, although some clearly performed better than others. 1. EPZM has shown incredible strength since the IPO. While I like this company’s technology and would like to own some shares, it […]
INFI – Infinity Pharma, Staying The Course
This has been one heck of a roller-coaster ride. The stock took 8 months to triple in price, and just 2 to give it all back. Shares began to swoon prior to data presentations at ASCO and ICML. We had expected positive results to soothe the market, but this was not the case. Investors focused […]
July 1- EOD
Today was the fallout of the AMGN bid for ONXX. There are a couple of aspects of it that I want to touch on and go a little further than my article this morning. 1. In my article I tried to cover the companies that I thought had the most compelling reasons to be interested […]
June 14- Midday
This is midday today as I will be out of my office for the rest of the day. So an early surprise. A very odd day today in the market. Biotechs really seemed to lag for some reason even when the market was not a real drag. Let’s see how we end the day. 1. […]
June 11-EOD
It was an odd day in the market with weakness early followed but a rally in the afternoon that made it look like we would get to unchanged (or even green). Then we sold off in the afternoon only to make another run at green in the last hour. On the positive side, it was […]
Impressions from ASCO 2013 Days 3 and 4
Having survived ASCO 2013, we wanted to review some of the main data from Days 3 and 4. After a very long first 2 sessions, Day 3 and 4 were less data heavy, however, the outcomes from some of these had a dramatic effect for some (like CLVS, INFI, TSRO and SNTA). PD1’s belle of […]
June 3- EOD
Happy mid-ASCO (although most of the data is already presented). Some interesting ASCO and, surprisingly, non-ASCO stories. 1. I added to my SGEN position today (at $33.67). It has been under pressure recently and I’ve been looking to add over the summer in anticipation of HL data at ASH. I am intimately aware of the […]
May 31- EOD
Again, I feel like today was another quite before the storm day. There was some interesting news but really nothing dramatic happening. 1. Jon Najarian pumped CLSN last night as an ASCO play, which is horribly odd given that CLSN will not be at ASCO and thermodox is a complete dud of a drug. I […]
INFI – Infinity Pharmaceuticals: Down But Not Out
Less than two months ago on April 2, INFI hit a multi-year high of $50.26. Since then, the stock tumbled more than 50% in a relentless fall driven by high trading volume. Shares recently recovered some and now sit at about $25. Many have argued the stock was overpriced in early April when it carried […]
GILD – Gilead – Building An Oncology Powerhouse
Having solidified its position as the leading provider of HIV medicines, Gilead turned toward a strategy of diversification, first with pulmonary and cardiovascular disease, then HCV. The first two were mostly busts, but a strong focus on Hepatitis C has paid dividends for stakeholders. Now the company is building on its momentum to create an […]
May 16 2013 – End Of Day Biotech Wrap-up
A lot of movers today and most were deep in the red. A lot of the moves were ASCO stocks selling off after the abstracts were released last night but some recovered (PCYC) while others stayed deep in the red (INFI) or moderately red (ARIA and MDVN). There is a lot to talk about but […]
