Thursday's Health Winners & Losers

Health indices were flat Thursday, balanced by stocks moving on merger updates and data divulgence.

Bioenvision(BIVN) fell 3% after Genzyme(GENZ) reaffirmed its offer price of $5.60 per outstanding share to purchase Bioenvision. On Oct. 4, Bioenvision shareholders will vote on the merger.

Genzyme, which already owns all of the company's preferred stock and 22% of the outstanding shares, said in a press release Thursday that if it doesn't garner the majority support from shareholders for the merger, it's committed to playing an active and constructive role as a significant long-term shareholder of Bioenvision.

Genzyme edged down just 31 cents, or 0.5%, to $62.82, and Bioenvision fell 17 cents, to $5.26.

Wednesday after close, biopharmaceutical company Parexel International(PRXL) said it completed its acquisition of Taiwan-based Apex International Clinical Research and now anticipates consolidated service revenue between $203 million and $210 million in the first quarter of 2008 and between $875 million and $910 million for fiscal 2008.

The company previously predicted between $200 million and $210 million for the quarter and between $855 million and $885 million in 2008. Parexel gained $1.42, or 3.5%, to $41.84 Thursday.

Another winner -- MGI Pharma(MOGN) -- garnered $1.35, or 5.1%, to $27.86, after saying it submitted to the Food and Drug Administration a new-drug application for its Aquavan Injection for use as a sedative-hypnotic agent in patients who are having brief surgical or diagnostic procedures. MGI said that the application comprised data from 21 clinical studies, including 1,611 subjects.