Wednesday's Health Winners & Losers

Health stocks were propped up on Wednesday by earnings and revenue guidance, regulatory actions and general plans for 2008.

Barr Pharmaceuticals(BRL) said on Wednesday that it's asking the FDA to approve the generic version of Eloxatin, an injectible colon cancer treatment. In doing so, the company is challenging Sanofi-Aventis'(SNY) patent. Sanofi and partner Debiopharm filed a lawsuit on Friday to prevent Barr from moving the generic drug forward. The product had sales of approximately $1.1 billion in the U.S., based on IMS sales data for the 12 months ended October 2007. Barr was trading up $1.85, or 3.6%, at $53.68.

Other stocks rose on bullish outlooks. Contract research organization Pharmaceutical Product Development(PPDI) rose $4.15, or 9.8%, to $46.65 after the company predicted Tuesday post-close that its 2008 profit will beat Wall Street expectations.

The company said it expects 2008 profits to be between $1.82 and $1.92 a share, and anticipates revenue between $1.54 billion and $1.59 billion vs. prior guidance of $1.29 billion to $1.34 billion. The Thomson Financial consensus target was $1.71 a share on revenue of $1.51 billion.

Similarly, ViroPharma (VPHM) said Wednesday that it expected sales for its lead product Vanconcin, a treatment for gastrointestinal tract infections, to reach $210 million to $235 million in 2008, vs. prior-year sales of $200 million to $208 million in 2007. Analysts are looking for sales of $205.3 million in 2007 and $180.3 million in 2008.