The FDA is routinely criticized for being a poor steward of drug research and pharmaceutical side effects. The agency proved once again why much of the criticism is justified.
The FDA today said that two drugs, each of which has been on the market for many years, react badly when taken together. It is a wonder it took so long to figure this out since each of the drugs is very widely used. Read More
These are Thursday’s top ten analyst research summary upgrades, downgrades, and initiations from Wall Street brokerage firms:
AstraZeneca (AZN) Cut to Hold at Citigroup.
Brandywine Realty (BDN) Cut to Neutral at BofA/Merrill Lynch.
China Telecom (CHA) Raised to Hold from Sell at Deutsche Bank.
Huron Consulting (HURN) Raised to Neutral from Underperform at at Baird.
Prudential (PRU) Raised to Outperform at FBR.
PetSmart (PETM) Cut to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Regions Financial (RF) Cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank.
ReneSola (SOL) Raised to Buy from Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Royal Dutch Shell (RDS-B) Raised to Buy at Citigroup.
Tween Brands (TWB) Raised to Hold from Sell at Citigroup.
Under Armour (UA) Cut to Underweight from Hold at KeyBanc.
JON C. OGG
August 20, 2009
Diabetes is becoming an epidemic in the U.S. and the Western World. The ties to obesity are often direct, so the potential treatments are often directly tied as well. We did a recent dig down for the next $170 billion opportunity for eight different major diseases and conditions, and now we have conducted a much deeper dig down specifically in the field of diabetes over at BioHealthInvestor.com. We have recent and upcoming FDA action and data being presented from Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO), MannKind Corp. (NASDAQ: MNKD), Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMLN), Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY), Alkermes Inc. (NASDAQ: ALKS), Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) and AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN). There is a mini-race going on between some of the later stage studies from obesity and diabetes candidates from Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARNA), VIVUS, inc. (NASDAQ: VVUS), Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: OREX) and Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: AMLN). Geron Corporation (NASDAQ: GERN) and StemCells Inc. (NASDAQ: STEM) were noted as two of the stem cell hopes, although stem cells may later rather than sooner.
Generex Biotechnology Corporation (NASDAQ: GNBT), Spherix Incorporated (NASDAQ: SPEX) and Oramed Pharmaceuticals Inc. (OTCBB: ORMP) were all noted in the much smaller or emerging plays. Home Diagnostics, Inc. (NASDAQ:HDIX) and Insulet Corporation (NASDAQ: PODD) have both recently had key events as the interest in test equipment companies continues to remain high.
FULL STORY with much more detail at BioHealthInvestor.com.
You can just see the TV advertisements now… Wal-Mart and Uncle Sam are “rolling back” swine flu.
The retailer is in talks with federal officials about possibly putting vaccination sites in its stores this fall. It’s a smart idea that should boost Wal-Mart Stores Inc’s (NYSE: WMT) foot traffic, and give the federal government a fighting chance to reach aggressive its inoculation goals, especially in children. Read More
Safety and efficacy data are critical to drug candidates. But what really makes a potential drug attractive is strong top-line data, a new biotech-based treatment, and a massive potential market.
With help from Thomson Pharma and our own backlog of coverage, BioHealthInvestor.com, a 247wallst.com website, sought to find the most promising biopharmaceutical candidate from both biotech and pharmaceutical companies in each of the top 10 most prevalent medical conditions in the U.S. Read More
Novartis AG (NYSE: NVS) shares are at session highs and well of the lows of the day in the early afternoon Thursday after Japan okayed one of the company’s human growth hormones, the first approval in Japan of a generic biotech drug. With the recent talks of President Obama wanting generic biologics, the approval process in Japan is probably not an isolated event and should not be ignored for broader implications.
Read More
These are the top 10 early bird analyst upgrades and downgrades we have seen in Wall Street research calls early this Thursday morning with over two hours until the market opens:
AstraZeneca (AZN) Cut to Underperform at Jefferies.
Basic Energy Services (BAS) Cut to Sell at UBS.
Bronco Drilling (BRNC) Cut to Sell at UBS.
Barclays (BCS) Raised to Overweight at Morgan Stanley.
Deutsche Bank (DB) Raised to Overweight at MOrgan Stanley.
MetroPCS (PCS) remains Sell at Auriga.
Mylan Labs (MYL) Cut to Underperform at Bernstein.
Patterson-UTI (PTEN) Cut to Sell at UBS.
Pioneed Drilling (PDC) Cut to Sell at UBS.
Willis Group (WSH) Started as Buy at Sun Trust Robinson Humphrey.
JON C. OGG
These are some of the top pre-market analyst upgrades we have seen from Wall Street early this Monday morning:
AstraZeneca (AZN) Raised to Buy at UBS.
BioMed Realty Trust (BMR) Raised to Outperform at Oppenheimer.
Entergy (ETR) Raised to Buy at Jefferies.
3M (MMM) Raised to Equal-Weight at BVarclays.
Netflix (NFLX) Raised to Buy at Citigroup.
Novo Nordisk (NVO) Raised to Buy at Citigroup.
Stanley Works (SWK) Raised to Outperform at Baird.
JON C. OGG
This weekend will be a potentially important oncology and cancer news weekend for drug and biotech stocks. The American Association for Cancer Research Meeting will actually have a 100th annual meeting, and some traders and investors may be using this as a preview for what lies ahead at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting in a month. The following companies which are presenting data:
You can see a full summary of the data being presented at BioHealthInvestor.com site. There will be others presenting data this weekend, and these were from the press releases of the meeting ahead of time.
JON C. OGG
These are some of the many pre-market downgrades and negative calls we have seen from Wall Street analysts this Friday morning:
Allstate (ALL) Cut to Underweight at JPMorgan.
AstraZeneca (AZN) Cut to Hold at Citigroup.
E*TRADE (ETFC) Cut to Underperform at Raymond James.
Fifth Third (FITB) Cut to Market Perform at Bernstein.
Juniper Networks (JNPR) Cut to Neutral at Piper Jaffray.
Qualcomm (QCOM) Cut to Hold at Societe Generale.
Regions Financial (RF) Cut to Market Perform at Bernstein.
Ryanair (RYAAY) Cut to Hold at Citigroup.
Sepracor (SEPR) Cut to Sell at Piper Jaffray.
Starwood Hotels (HOT) Cut to Perform at Oppenheimer.
Timken (TKR) Cut to Hold at KeyBanc.
Time Warner Cable (TWC) Cut to Sell at Collins Stewart.
T. Rowe Price (TROW) Cut to Underweight at JPMorgan.
Under Armour (UA) Cut to Sell at Piper Jaffray.
Veolia Environnement (VE) Cut to Sell at Citigroup.
Zenith National Insurance (ZNT) Cut to Market Perform at FBR; Cut to Perform at Oppenheimer.
Jon C. Ogg
January 30, 2009
These are some of the top pre-market analyst upgrades and positive calls we have seen on Wall Street this Friday morning:
Jon C. Ogg
January 30, 2009
We have run a full feature story over at BioHealthInvestor.com after reading a study that came off the Mayo Clinic site. The study showed that a combination of fish oil and red rice yeast in combination along with a 12-week multidisciplinary lifestyle program generated much of the same results as a statin alone in lowering LDL Cholesterol. Stocks we covered in this include Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and AstraZeneca plc (NYSE: AZN). There are many others which could have been included, but this study went head to head with Merck’s Zocor (off of exclusivity).
It is a huge stretch to believe that this will replace or eliminate traditional pharmaceutical treatments such as statins and other cholesterol treatments (same for triglycerides, blood pressure, and other issues). But it does lend at least some credibility to the shot that down the road some treatments involving over the counter supplements and behavior modification combined could make a large dent in that pool of the millions of Americans who just pop pills written by the Doctor.
In that full feature story, we ran some alternative thoughts where this could also be applied in other treatment areas and we showed a break-down of just how large these sales are in 2007.
Jon C. Ogg
July 8, 2008
Last night was a novel release from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (or ASCO) as the society decided to publish all of the findings to the public at once. Keep in mind that many of the larger drug companies will have other presentations as well. Below is some of the key and very brief data:
Array BioPharma (NASDAQ: ARRY) and AstraZeneca have announced plans for two additional randomized Phase II trials for AZD6244 in the second half of 2008 to test AZD6244 (ARRY-886) in combination with a chemotherapeutic agent; one trial will be for melanoma patients and the other for non-small cell lung cancer patients. AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) showed positive breast cancer data in survivability.
Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) showed that its Alimta showed 3 months longer survival in a lung cancer sub-set group.
Genentech (NYSE: DNA) showed that Avastin in brain cancer trials showed 9 months survival while most patients live only 6 months from the study point.
GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) showed that Tykerb added 1 year survival on advanced breast cancer patients.
Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ONXX) and Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals announced that Nexavar tablets significantly improved overall survival by 47.3% in patients in the Asia-Pacific region with primary liver cancer versus those receiving placebo; Nexavar improved time to progression in these patients by 74%.
Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) presented data showing Celebrex may prevent lung cancer in current and former smokers.
ZymoGenetics, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZGEN) showed additional data from Phase 1 confirm that the combination is well-tolerated and shows anti-tumor activity; also reported positive results from the cohort expansion portion of a Phase 1 study with IL-21 and Rituxan in relapsed/refractory indolent lymphoma.
In the past investors had to wait for abstracts to be published and for presentations to be made. It also was a situation where embargoes were used with media on releasing certain data. Needless to say, there were many leaks on key data on who got what information when… and many profited from it.
This is only a brief summary of data from only a handful of the companies. You can count on there being more data from many more biotech and drug companies… Floods of it.
Jon C. Ogg
May 16, 2008
Jon Ogg produces and edits the "10 Stocks Under $10" newsletter and he does not own securities in the companies he covers.
These aren’t the only impact analyst calls this morning, but these are the ones we are focusing the Tuesday in pre-market trading hours:
Jon C. Ogg
April 1, 2008
Below are the ten analyst calls that 247WallSt.com is focusing on in pre-market trading this Wednesday morning:
Jon C. Ogg
March 19, 2008
These are not the only analyst calls this morning, but these are 10 impact calls we are reviewing this Thursday morning:
Jon C. Ogg
March 13, 2008
CyDex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has filed to come public via an IPO in what it lists for filing purposes as up to $50 million in securities sales. It has applied to have the common stock approved for listing on the NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol "CYDX." The underwriting group shows Pacific Growth Equities, LLC as the lead underwriter with JMP Securities and Fortis Securities also in the underwriting.
This is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of drugs that have limitations of current therapies. It notes that it has developed a portfolio of 12 product candidates utilizing its drug formulation technology using Captisol cyclodextrins. Captisol cyclodextrins are a patent protected, specifically modified family of cyclodextrins designed to improve solubility, stability, bioavailability, safety and/or dosing of a number of active pharmaceutical ingredients, or APIs.
It has a business outlicensing of its drug formulation technology to established pharmaceutical companies, and Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) have commercialized these. It also has a Phase II study in the U.K. with AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) Captisol-Enabled Budesonide solution for inhalation.
Total revenues were $12.745 million for 2007, broken down as:
Jon C. Ogg
March 12, 2008
Some of these stocks hit 52-week lows and recovered off of lows so they won’t have a low close. But these did all touch or breach the 52-week lows. At the end we also broke out retail stocks, financial stocks, airlines & transports, and hotels. A separate report could have been compiled for REIT’s as well, but many of those were left off because of room or volume. There were enough 52-week lows today that you might even wonder if there had been a mini-crash in the markets. Here are the 52-week lows for December 28, 2007:
Retail Stocks on 52-week lows: Ann Taylor (NYSE:ANN), Big Lots (NYSE:BIG), Borders Group (NYSE:BGP), Bon Ton Stores (NASDAQ:BONT), Chico’s FAS (NYSE:CHS), Finish Line (NASDAQ:FINL), Liz Claiborne (NYSE: LIZ), Macy’s (NYSE: M), Office Max (NYSE:OMX), Petsmart (NASDAQ:PETM), Stage Stores (NYSE:SSI)
Financial stocks on 52-week lows: Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC), Citigroup (NYSE:C), Canseco (NYSE: CNO), Discover Financial (NYSE: DFS), Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ:FITB), Fortress Investment (NYSE: FIG), MBIA Inc. (NYSE: MBI), Washington Mutual (NYSE:WM)… urgh! When does it stop?
Airlines/Transports on 52-week lows: Airtran Holdings (NYSE: AAI)…again. Did they launch a Friends Die Free rewards plan? Continental Airlines (NYSE:CAL), Fedex (NYSE:FDX), Mesa Air (NASDAQ:MESA), Northwest Airlines (NYSE: NWA)… near $100 oil is a real pain.
Hotels Hitting 52-week lows: Host Hotels (NYSE: HST), Lasalle Hotel (NYSE: LHO), Starwood Hotels (NYSE:HOT), Sunstone Hotel (NYSE: SHO), Wydham Worldwide (NYSE:WYN). Maybe these all wish they could get the private equity buyers back in the sector. If only they could still borrow.
These CEO’s new year’s resolutions are all the same: "In 2008 I want to keep my stock off the 52-week low lists."
Jon C. Ogg
December 28, 2007
Stock Tickers: AZN, BCRX, EHTH, CTIC, HW, NRMX, SBUX, WFMI, DUK
It’s no secret we had the makings of a crummy week, but the market managed to turn itself back around after a fairly week open. Regardles of a bull market or any market, there are still stocks hitting 52-week lows:
AstraZeneca (AZN) ADR’s put in lows, two days after the CFO left to join Goldman Sachs.
BioCryst (BCRX) stays weak, apparently the near-term bounce turned back into a pounce.
Cell Therapeutics (CTIC) managed to keep its post-ASCO slide going.
eHealth, Inc (EHTH) put in the lowest close since its October IPO.
Headwaters (HW) just keeps slipping and looks uglier daily, and has been oin a crash course for about 6 weeks..
Neurochem (NRMX) closed down another 10% after the poor drug outlook yesterday.
Starbucks (SBUX) and Whole Foods (WFMI) were in the 52-week low gutter club earlier but got bailed out by the market offer. Duke Energy (DUK) also rode most of the day on new adjusted lows before an end of day recovery, although these might not be ultimate 52-week lows on an adjusted basis.
Jon C. Ogg
June 8, 2007
Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.
(AAUK) Anglo American’s CEO will become a non-executive member of the board of directors at BP (BP).
(ACAD) Acadia Pharmaceuticals traded up over 10% after Jim Cramer touted the stock as a speculative play for trading the upcoming data on its schizophrenia and Parkinson’s treatment.
(ACOR) Acorda Therapeutics Starts Second Phase 3 Trial of Fampridine-SR in MS
(AMTD) TD AMERITRADE was notified that JANA and S.A.C. funds have secured an interest of roughly 8.6% stake to pressure the companies to enter a merger.
(AZN) AstraZeneca CFO leaves to join Goldman Sachs.
(CROX) Crocs is launching a fashionable line of high heel and flats for women to appeal to fashion conscious women.
(CSC) Computer Sciences Corp. may look to acquire iSoft Group plc in the UK.
(ETFC) E*Trade trading up 3% on AMERITRADE news.
(FCS) Fairchild Semiconductor reaffirmed Q2 growth targets.
(GSK) GlaxoSmithkline defends Avandia saying it does not increase heart risks.
(KFY) Korn Ferry $0.37 adjusted EPS versus $0.34 estimates.
(MAIR) MAIR Holdings -$0.06 EPS vs -$0.05e.
(PNRA) Panera trading down $7.00 on an earnings warning of $0.38-0.40 vs $0.47-0.51e.
(PLUG) Plug Power named new CFO.
(PRU) Prudential lays off 420 in a research phase out, will cease covering all equities immediately.
(RUS) Russ Berrie rejected an $18.00 buyout as an undervalued deal.
(SCHW) Charles Schwab traded up 1% after the AMERITRADE news.
(SIRI) Sirius Satellite Radio announced a $250 million term-loan from Morgan Stanley.
(STAR) Starent priced a 10.5 million share IPO at$12.00, above the $9.00 to $11.00 range.
(WFMI) Whole Foods is facing a deal blockage by the FTC over a ‘natural foods market disruption’ according to FTC.
Jon C. Ogg
June 6, 2007
Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.
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