
Biotech Sector Weekly Rewind
BOSTON (
) -- Adam Feuerstein's take on the biotech week that was Oct. 11, 2010:
Pfizer
( KG)
King Pharmaceuticals
( KG) for $3.6 billion to bolster its pain drug franchise.
Pfizer adds new partners through King Buy
Alkermes
(ALKS) - Get Report
CEO Richard Pops (@popsalks)
breaks company news on Twitter
. Bravo! (via @MikeHuckman)
The news broken by Pops: Finally, a drug approval in October! Alkermes received FDA clearance to market
Vivitrol as a treatment for opioid addiction
.
Alexza Pharmaceuticals
(ALXA)
and
Jazz Pharmaceuticals
(JAZZ) - Get Report
not as lucky:
FDA denies approval to both of their drugs
.
Questcor Pharmaceuticals
(QCOR)
receives belated FDA approval for Acthar as a treatment for infantile spasms.
The week's top-performing sector stocks:
Pharmathene
(PIP)
(+120%),
Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals
( MIPI) (+65%),
Rosetta Genomics
(ROSG)
(+60%),
SIGA Technologies
(SIGA) - Get Report
(+56%) and
King Pharmaceuticals
( KG) (+37%).
Johnson & Johnson's
(JNJ) - Get Report
abiraterone boosts survival by four months
for patients with advanced prostate cancer.
Seattle Genetics
(SGEN) - Get Report
reported a second clinical trial win for the lymphoma drug brentuximab vedotin.
This week's
:
Exact Sciences
(EXAS) - Get Report
,
Sequenom
(SQNM)
,
Vanda Pharmaceuticals
(VNDA) - Get Report
,
Delcath Systems
(DCTH)
,
Labopharm
( DDSS),
Cadence Pharmaceuticals
(CADX)
and
Transcept Pharmaceuticals
(TSPT)
.
Forbes'
Matt Herper on the
fight against drug-resistant germs
.
Cancer drug analyst and blogger Sally Church
spends the week at the European cancer conference known as ESMO
.
The week's worst-performing sector stocks:
Alexza Pharmaceuticals
(ALXA)
(-56%),
Spherix
(SPEX) - Get Report
(-24%),
AspenBio Pharma
( ANDS) (-17%),
Anadys Pharmaceuticals
( ANDS) (-16%) and
ProPhase Labs
(PRPH) - Get Report
(-13%).
Cubist Pharmaceuticals
(CBST)
reports third quarter Cubicin sales of $154 million, lower than the consensus estimate of $162 million. The company reports higher-than-expected earnings for the quarter on lower operating expenses.
The biggest (sore) losers:
Arena Pharmaceuticals
(ARNA) - Get Report
.
Chemist and blogger Derek Lowe takes another
skeptical look at the anti-aging claims
made about GlaxoSmithKline's resveratrol.
Will the withdrawal of Meridia
help or hurt other weight-loss pills
? (via Pharmalot)
Reuters Health
editor Ivan Oransky on
Geron
(GERN) - Get Report
and its
first-ever stem cell study in patients with spinal cord injury
.
"Scrapers" are scouring web sites
looking for patients' personal information
.
Roche
reports weaker-than-expected sales of its three most important drugs -- Avastin, Rituxan and Herceptin. Overall, third quarter revenue fell 7%.
ImmunoGen
(IMGN) - Get Report
and
Novartis
(NVS) - Get Report
strike a licensing deal to develop cancer drugs based on ImmunoGen's "armed antibody" drug delivery technology.
Exelixis
(EXEL) - Get Report
licenses two experimental cancer drugs to
Bristol-Myers Squibb
(BMY) - Get Report
.
Perfect FDA Drug Approval Pickers
Halozyme Therapeutics
(HALO) - Get Report
cut 25% of its workforce in a restructuring move.
The week in financings:
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals
(RGEN) - Get Report
($175 million),
Cytori Therapeutics
(CYTX)
($19 million) and
Anadys Pharmaceuticals
( ANDS) ($25 million).
FDA doesn't always heed the
recommendations offered by its advisory panels
. (via @matthewherper)
Phase III data on
Titan Pharmaceuticals'
(TTNP.OB)
implantable addiction drug is published in JAMA
.
Boehringer Ingelheim
drops development of a drug for the controversial disorder known as female sexual dysfunction
.
Celgene
(CELG) - Get Report
completes acquisition of
Abraxis BioScience
.
--Written by Adam Feuerstein in Boston.
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