Health Winners & Losers: Abbott
09/04/08 - 06:20 PM EDT
Elizabeth Trotta
Health stocks were nothing to flirt with Thursday as the major biotech and pharma indices followed the broader markets into the red and regulators took a cautionary stance.
The Food and Drug Administration issued a notice Thursday that makers of TNF inhibitors, used to treat immune system-related diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease, must beef up their labels with regard to the risk of fungal infections. The agency said the makers of Humira, Cimzia, Enbrel and Remicade must strengthen their existing warnings on the risk of developing opportunistic fungal infections. Abbott (ABT Quote - Cramer on ABT - Stock Picks), which makes Humira, and Amgen (AMGN Quote - Cramer on AMGN - Stock Picks) and Wyeth (WYE Quote - Cramer on WYE - Stock Picks), which market Enbrel, are among those affected. Abbott, Amgen and Wyeth traded down 2.4%, 3.5% and 3.6%, respectively. The FDA, which said some patients with invasive fungal infections have died, used its new authority under the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 to mandate the label changes. Meanwhile, U.S. regulatory staff members said in a pre-panel analysis Thursday that Pfizer's(PFE Quote - Cramer on PFE - Stock Picks) bone drug Fablyn -- made with Ligand's (MDVN Quote - Cramer on MDVN - Stock Picks) technology -- was effective for preventing fractures in post-menopausal women with osteoporosis. However, they noted that patients who received the experimental osteoporosis drug had a higher death rate than those who took a placebo, though that outcome wasn't statistically significant. In their review of Fablyn, FDA staff members also noted concern that patients taking the pill had more than twice the chance of developing a blood clot in a vein.
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