ISIS Huntington’s Disease Program: A good start on an ambitious target

Huntington’s Disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by motor, cognitive and psychiatric symptoms. The most typical symptom, but by far not the only, is the occurrence of incontrollable, random and sudden movements (chorea). Symptoms appear around 30 and 40, and the life expectancy after the first manifestations is two decades. Huntington’s is caused by […]

ALNY – Alnylam’s busy summer

Some viewed 2012 as a year of redemption for the field of RNA therapeutics with several notable successes in the sector. This year will likely also mark another important milestone for this specialty sector of the biotech industry. The next 30 days should be rather interesting for Alnylam Pharma (NASDAQ:ALNY) and to some extent Tekmira […]

AEGR – Quick commentary on Aegerion

Aegerion has been one of the best performing stocks over the past 6-12 months. This has been driven by the value creation of Juxtapid (lomitapide), a small molecule microsomal triglyceride transfer protein inhibitor, was approved by the FDA and EMA adjunct to a low-fat diet and other lipid-lowering treatments, including LDL apheresis where available, in […]

Week’s Option Activity (5/6~5/10)

The following stocks had notable activity in their options during the past week: $HOLX (5/7/13): 3,900 DEC 22.0/18.0 strike Strangles were purchased for a net debit of 2.05 or a total cost of $799,500. DEC 22.0 Calls were bought for 1.00 and DEC 18.0 strike Puts were bought for 1.05 (stock at $20.66). Buyer makes […]

Some highlights from Day 1 at Needham

The 12th Annual Needham Healthcare Conference began today with a number of presentations by widely biotech companies. Below we have a slideshow of the summary slides from companies that we are following or have an interest in. These include Astex (ASTX), Cubist (CBST), Infinity (INFI), Insmed (INSM), ISIS (ISIS), Sarepta (SRPT) and several others.

ISIS – A Promising Treatment For SMA

Outlook: Bullish Catalyst: American Academy of Neurology Meeting, Mid-March Isis Pharmaceuticals recently received approval for Kynamro, a drug to treat Homozygous Familial Hypercholesterolemia (HoFH); but it is the development of an early stage treatment for Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) that is currently generating the most interest. It is the leading inherited cause of infant mortality […]

ISIS and AEGR – Where do they stand after the FDA Advisory Committee meetings?

October 17 and 18, 2012 saw back-to-back meetings of the FDA Endocrine and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee (EMDAC) to review pending new drug applications (NDAs) for two drugs for homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HoFH): lomitapide from Aegerion Pharma (NASDAQ: AEGR) and mipomersen/Kynamro from Sanofi/Genzyme and Isis Pharma (NASDAQ: ISIS). As Chimera predicted, both drugs received positive […]

ALNY IDIX ISIS LXRX – Dispatches from the Morgan Stanley and UBS conferences

The annual Morgan Stanley Global Healthcare conference and the UBS Global Life Sciences conference were held September 10-12 and 19-20, 2012, respectively. The MS presentations were moderated by the analyst host, while the UBS presentations were webcast without a Q&A session. We will highlight timeline projections and other notes for a few biotech companies. Isis […]

An October full of data and decisions

With October underway, we felt the need to highlight some of the most important upcoming data readouts and regulatory decisions. This month is particularly busy on the regulatory side of things with 5 PDUFAs, 4 Advisory Committees, 6 FDA actions, and multiple potential European Medicines Agency(EMA) decisions. The events are listed in chronological order. Eli […]

Updates from the Citi Global Healthcare Conference

The annual Citi Global Healthcare Conference was held February 27-29, 2012, and as always we listened in on the webcasts to identify key takeaways for Chimera Research Group shareholders. These write-ups may be brief due to overlap with comments at other recent investor conferences – see links below.   Amarin $AMRN (Leerink Swann notes – company overview) “We […]

Updates from the Leerink Swann Global Healthcare Conference

The annual Leerink Swann Global Healthcare Conference was held February 15-16th, 2012. Several companies that I follow for BiotechDueDiligence and Chimera Research Group presented, and I will summarize the highlights below. Isis Pharmaceutical $ISIS (Archived Chimera content – Pipeline Notes) KYNAMRO (mipomersen) Genzyme/Sanofi are preparing for launch this year. EU application was filed July 2011. […]