BioHealth Business Daily (AEN, ENCO, GNVC, GENZ, MYGN, NVAX, NYMX, OPXA, OSIP, SQNM)

We are seeing many moves today in the world of biotech and medical products, but oddly many moves are not on any big news.  Today’s edition of the BioHealth Business Daily covers moves in Adeona Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (AMEX: AEN), Encorium Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENCO), GenVec Inc. (NASDAQ: GNVC), Genzyme Corporation (NASDAQ: GENZ), Myriad Genetics Inc. (NASDAQ: MYGN), Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX), Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation (NASDAQ: NYMX), Opexa Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: OPXA), OSI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIP), and Sequenom Inc. (NASDAQ: SQNM).  Those are not even all of the movers today.

We have provided the news, a relative analysis on price and volume compared to normal, and added in other color where appropriate.

Adeona Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (AMEX: AEN) did not comment yesterday on an unusual price move, and today’s move is equally unusual. Technically, today would be a 4 day rally if it holds and shares have doubled since last Wednesday.   The brief description is that the company is into subclinical zinc deficiency and chronic copper toxicity.  Shares are up 29% at $2.26 on over 6 million shares.

Encorium Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENCO) is one company most people will never heard of before today.  The company designs and manages clinical trials primarily in Europe.  Most comments around this one on message boards are “what the… ?” type of comments.  We’ll stay out of the rumor mill here.  Shares are up 91% at $4.05 today on over 4 million shares.

GenVec Inc. (NASDAQ: GNVC) is getting crushed after it decided to drop its Phase III clinical trial of TNFerade in patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer.  Its results of an interim analysis showed that it did not meet the goals.  Shares are down 71% at $0.795 on a whopping 62 million shares.

Genzyme Corporation (NASDAQ: GENZ) is down again on another day of the analyst yo-yo playing.  The company was downgraded at Barclays to “Equal-Weight” from “Overweight” and its price target was cut to $52 from $63.  Shares are down close to 2% at $52.01 on trading volume that looks far from robust at about 2.5 million shares.

Myriad Genetics Inc. (NASDAQ: MYGN) is down after it announced that a Federal District Court ruled that isolated DNA claims are not patentable.  Shares are down over 5% at $23.60 and trading volume is already twice-normal at 3.6 million shares.

Novavax, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) saw a CNBC spike yesterday after Mike Huckman on CNBC talked about a new health scare about swine flu (ergo, H1N1) seeing a rapid rise in the Southeastern United States.  This spiked up from $2.40 to almost $2.65 yesterday before settling back down at $2.48.  Now shares are all the way back to $2.40.  The false media hypes…. Shares are down 4% at $2.38 versus a 52-week range of $0.52 to $7.79.

Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation (NASDAQ: NYMX) spiked earlier today after the company announced that a Phase 3 NX-1207 drug in development for multiple indications was successful in a series of blinded controlled multi-center U.S. clinical trials.  Positive results from animal studies have shown the potential for the use of high dosages for localized prostate cancer and of primary liver cancer.  Shares gapped up much higher but the stock is now down 1.1% at $3.52 on only about 120,000 shares.

Opexa Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: OPXA) is running higher today on an outside research call after Rodman & Renshaw started coverage with an Outperform rating and a $6 price target.  That implied 200% upside from yesterday’s close.  The quest for ten-baggers continues… Shares are up 17% at $2.25 and the 52-week trading range is $0.31 to $6.93.

OSI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIP) has decided it would be best to enter into an agreement with Astellas Pharma Inc. so that Astellas can review certain confidential information related to OSI.  This is one step closer to a merger, and we’d note that OSI still trades well above that $52 Astellas tender offer. Shares hit a new 52-week high of $59.97 today and the stock is up 1.1% at $59.95 on rather light trading volume.

Sequenom Inc. (NASDAQ: SQNM) is seeing a run today, and chatter seems to be driving it although we have not seen nor heard any new chatter that is different from any other days when the stock runs higher.  One  link that is being passed around is from BMC Cancer 2010 via biomedcentral.com, but we’d caution that this was “accepted and published” on March 16 and it even says “received on” August 12…. Shares are up over 7% at $6.59 and we have already hit 150% normal trading volume with over 8.5 million shares traded mid-day.

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JON C. OGG