Biotech Hangover: Pharmasset Fizzles, Intermune Ails

The Biotech Buzz Portfolio has lost its zing.

As a reminder, I put together a portfolio of 10 biotech stocks with the best returns immediately following the JPMorgan healthcare conference in early January. This was an experiment to see if the excitement and enthusiasm for biotech stocks at the closely followed investment conference could be sustained once investors went home.

Two months later, the buzz has worn off big time.

On a cumulative basis, the 10 stocks in the Biotech Buzz Portfolio have slumped 21% since Jan. 10, the closing day of the JPMorgan conference. (Closing prices on Mon. March 10 were used to calculate returns to date.)

That means this basket of biotech stocks is performing worse than the sector as a whole, which is down 17% since Jan. 10, as measured by the decline in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology Index(IBB Quote), an exchange-traded fund that tracks the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index.

During the same time period, the S&P 500 is off 10%.

Clearly, the Biotech Buzz Portfolio is not tracking good times in the sector. In fact, it's doing just the opposite, and in stunning, gut-wrenching detail. In this way, the portfolio is still providing useful insights, just not the ones I thought it would about two months ago.

Nine of the 10 stocks in the Biotech Buzz Portfolio have negative returns since Jan. 10. (See the chart below.)

The worst-performing stock in the portfolio -- Pharmasset(VRUS Quote), which is down 39% -- was actually the top performer at the portfolio's inception.

Pharmasset is developing a hepatitis C drug that has shown impressive data from some early phase II studies. It also has a partnership with Roche, a major player in the hepatitis C field. Yet none of that seems to matter in a bear market where everything biotech is being sold or shorted -- good news and bad.

Biotech selling overall has accelerated in the past month, and again, Pharmasset paints the picture.

On Feb. 8, the stock was down 13% from its Jan. 10 closing price of $25.65. On March 10, just a month later, the stock closed at $15.76, down 39%.

It's this rapid selloff that has even veteran, professional biotech investors unnerved. For some, the broad sector weakness is reminiscent of 2002, one of the worst years for biotech in recent history.

For those who don't remember, the two major biotech indices lost about 40% of their value in 2002. The year started off bad in the first few months, but selling didn't truly accelerate until the summer. At its worse point in July of that year, the sector was off 50%.

In 2002, investors shunned risky biotech, in part because the broader markets were dealing with damaging scandals like Enron and Worldcom.

In 2008, investors are ultra risk-averse, due to the subprime mortgage mess and the threat of recession.

With the exception of big-cap stocks like Genentech(DNA Quote) and Celgene(CELG Quote), the selling of biotech this year has been broad and indiscriminate. That's reflected in the poor performance of the Biotech Buzz Portfolio.

The Biotech Buzz Portfolio Stock price
	Jan. 10	Mar. 10	Percent change
Pharmasset	25.65	15.76	-39%
Idenix Pharmaceuticals	4.08	4.15	2%
Intermune	17.82	13.25	-26%
Allos Therapeutics	7.52	5.18	-31%
Incyte	11.18	8.53	-24%
Isis Pharmaceuticals	17.4	13.44	-23%
Nektar Therapeutics	7.31	6.17	-16%
Viropharma	9.38	8.26	-12%
Seattle Genetics	11.89	7.45	-37%
Biogen Idec	59.18	54.74	-8%

Seattle Genetics(SGEN Quote) has plunged 37%, Allos Therapeutics(ALTH Quote) is off 31% and Incyte(INCY Quote) is down 24%.

Isis Pharmaceuticals(ISIS Quote), which started the year with a lucrative partnership with Genzyme(GENZ Quote), is down 23%.

Biogen Idec(BIIB Quote) is down 5% for the year, but is down 8% since its inclusion on the Biotech Buzz Portfolio.

The only portfolio stock with positive returns so far is Idenix Pharmaceuticals(IDIX Quote), up 2%.