24/7 Wall St. » NUVO

The 52-Week Low Club (XRM)(MGI)(BGP)(DVAX)(NUVO)(SHFL)

247wallst — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:56:49 +0000

Xerium Technologies (XRM) delays 10-K and risk of default. Falls to $1.16 from 52-week high of $9.20.

Moneygram (MGI) is taken out of one of the S&P indexes. Down to $1.62 from 52-week high of $30.67.

Borders Group (BGP) Bad time to be in the print business. Down to $6.98 from 52-week high of $24.15.

Dynavax Technologies (DVAX) FDA halts trials of a company drug. Falls to $2.07 from 52-week high of $6.55.

Nuvelo (NUVO) Cuts staff and announces failure of drug trial. Down to $.55 from 52-week high of $6.63.

Shuffle Master (SHFL) Post loss for quarter. Drops to $5.13 from 52-week high of $19.78.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Short Selling Volatile Biotechs (June 2007) (DNDN, NFLD, NSTK, ADLR, ALTH, COLY, CEGE, NUVO)

247wallst — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 12:36:45 +0000

Stock Tickers: DNDN, NFLD, NSTK, ADLR, ALTH, COLY, CEGE, NUVO

Many of the recent biotech implosions are always interesting to see if short sellers are getting out of the way or adding pressure. Out of the biotechs we covered with recent implosions here is what we saw from May to June. Oddly enough, only Dendreon (DNDN) out of this group showed a drop in the short interest out of this group from May to June..

Dendreon (DNDN)…can’t forget them. Recently we noted how options were weighing on the stock and how the company probably had a news vacuum coming up.
June Short Interest: 40.8 million shares, down almost 2% from May.
May Short Interest: 41.66M.

Adolor Corp. (ADLR)
June Short Interest: 6.5 million shares, up almost 10% from May.
May Short Interest: 5.9 million shares.

Allos Therapeutics (ALTH) didn’t implode, but it looked like it was going to. Short sellers didn’t have the news ahead of time so maybe the short-covering was a savior.
June Short Interest: 5.17 million shares, up 30% from May.
May Short Interest: 3.97 million shares.

Northfield Labs (NFLD)….going, going, gone…..Biotech Zombie.
June Short Interest: 8.06 million shares, up 8% from May.
May Short Interest: 7.4 million shares.

Nastech Pharma (NSTK) was Cramer’s biotech zombie he said was looking up back in March. Short sellers bet against Cramer.
June Short Interest: 5.09 million shares, up 21% from May.
May Short Interest: 4.2 million shares.

Coley Pahrmaceuticals (COLY)….short sellers didn’t know this was getting the bad news at the cut-off date.
June Short Interest: 4.7 million shares, up 5% from May.
May Short Interest: 4.46 million shares.

Cell Genesys (CEGE)
June Short Interest: 15.4 million shares, up almost under 10% from May.
May Short Interest: 14 million shares.

Nuvelo Inc. (NUVO)…short sellers didn’t know for sure that Bayer was bailing here…..
June Short Interest: 8.06 million shares, up 8% from May.
May Short Interest: 7.44 million shares.

The Biotech HOLDRs (BBH) are hard to draw an inference to because of the size differentials and volume, but its June short interest was up more than 4% from May with a reading of 1.72 million shares.

Jon C. Ogg
June 27, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Pre-Market Stock News (June 27, 2007)

247wallst — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 07:06:29 +0000

(ANDW) Andrew Corp being acquired for $15.00 per share.
(APOG) Apogee Enterprises $0.34 EPS vs $0.23e; unsure if comparable.
(AUTH) AuthenTec priced its 7.5M share IPO at the top of the $9.00 to $11.00 range for 7.5 million shares.
(BAY) Bayer AG and Onyx submit supplemental new drug application for Nexavar to treat liver cancer.
(CTV) Commscope raised guidance.
(GTRC) Guitar Center being acquired by Bain Capital for $63.00 per share.
(ISTA) ISTA Pharmaceuticals will raise $36.75 million in private placement.
(JSDA) Jones Soda announced exclusive formula use pact in Japan.
(KVHI) KVH Industries announced that Monaco Coach will add the KVH TracVision R-series of mobile satellite TV systems to their new 2008 vehicles.
(NKE) Nike $0.86 EPS vs $0.86e.
(NUVO) Nuvelo lost Bayer as R&D partner in stroke trials.
(ORCL) Oracle $0.37 EPS vs $0.35e.
(PAYX) Paychex reports earnings after close: $0.36 EPS and $496.3M revenue expected.
(RYAAY) Ryanair blocked by EU in bid to buy Aer Lingus.
(SCOR) comScore priced its 5.3 million share IPO at $16.50 per share.
(SMSC) $0.29 EPS vs $0.25e.
(SQNM) Sequenom announced it will develop HPVtest and other diagnostics with SensiGEn LLC.
(TASR) Taser announced a suit in St. Louis against the company was voluntarily dismissed.
(TOPP) Topps Co. said Upper Deck has initiated a $10.75 per share tender.
(YMI) YM BioSciences received FDA Clearance for an IND for its fentanyl-based pain product.
(YUM) Yum! Brands trades ex-split to reflect a 2-1 stock split.

Jon C. Ogg
June 27, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Nuvelo Loses Bayer as Development Partner in Stroke Treatment (NUVO, BAY)

247wallst — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 16:03:50 +0000

Nuvelo, Inc. (NUVO-NASDAQ) dropped the bomb today with the announcement that it will resume development of alfimeprase, its lead investigational product candidate for the potential treatment of multiple blood clot-related disorders such as acute ischemic stroke, catheter occlusion (CO) and acute peripheral arterial occlusion (PAO).

In addition, Nuvelo and Bayer HealthCare have agreed to terminate their collaboration. Nuvelo has agreed to waive Bayer’s obligation to provide Nuvelo twelve-months’ notice of termination in consideration of Bayer’s agreement to pay Nuvelo a lump sum of $15 million. Nuvelo has also granted Bayer the one-time option to reacquire rights to alfimeprase upon the initiation of a pivotal stroke trial, on the same terms as the original agreement with the addition of a $15 million option exercise payment from Bayer.

Nuvelo (NUVO) shares are trading down 19% at $2.70 in after-hours trading. Losing a larger partner is almost never considered a good thing on Wall Street.

Dr. Ted W. Love, chairman and chief executive officer of Nuvelo: "Based on our review of all clinical data and extensive consultations with Data Safety Monitoring Boards, study steering committees and regulatory authorities, we believe that alfimeprase has the potential to offer many benefits, and we remain committed to its development."

ONGOING & INVESTIGATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS: Going forward, Nuvelo is investigating whether a single, higher, more concentrated dose of alfimeprase would generate results it believes are necessary for commercial success. Nuvelo has concluded that the delivery method for alfimeprase in its acute PAO program is suboptimal. Nuvelo will close the suspended NAPA-3 trial and plans to initiate preclinical studies focused on identifying optimized delivery methods in acute PAO in the second half of 2007. Data from the Phase 3 acute PAO trial, NAPA-2, indicates that efficacy could potentially be enhanced by maintaining alfimeprase longer at the site of thrombus.

FINANCIAL GUIDANCE UPDATE: For the first half of 2007, in anticipation of a mid-year update on alfimeprase development, Nuvelo provided guidance that it expected both operating expenses and net cash used in operating activities to be in the range of $30 to $35 million for the six month period. Factoring in the revised development plans for alfimeprase described above and the change in its collaboration with Bayer, Nuvelo expects that both operating expenses and net cash used in operating activities will not exceed this same range for the second half of 2007. The company expects to provide further clarification with respect to operating expenses and use of cash as well as the accounting treatment of the Bayer payments made to Nuvelo on its second quarter earnings release conference call.

Jon C. Ogg
June 26, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.