Biotech Notebook: Hythiam, Shire, Genentech

There is no concerted effort by the company to switch Adderall XR patients to Vyvanse, Shire insisted. As a result, Shire will be relatively unaffected when generic Adderall XR is launched in 2009.

That's Shire's story. The pharmacist on the front lines sees a different picture.

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Investing in Genentech(DNA Quote) hasn't been easy these days. The company's stock is on track for another down year (its currently off 13%). This is on top of a 9% drop in 2006.

Genentech has practically written the biotech book on how to produce headline-grabbing, stock-moving clinical trial results. Not so this year. The latest disappointment came Tuesday, when partner Roche announced the failure of a phase III study testing the combination of Avastin and Tarceva in pancreatic cancer.

Looking ahead to 2008, could Genentech slide for a third straight year? It doesn't seem possible, especially from a company this smart. But to get the stock moving in the right direction (I mean up), Genentech needs some good news.

That could start in December, when an FDA advisory panel meets to discuss the use of Avastin in first-line metastatic breast cancer. The FDA's decision date is Feb. 23, 2008.

There are two big Rituxan clinical trials to watch for in the first half of next year: The "Olympus" trial is investigating Rituxan as a treatment for primary progressive multiple sclerosis, and the "Explorer" study tests the drug in patients with lupus. The latter trial, especially, could be big, because lupus has been a very stubborn disease to treat.