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I'm taking some much needed time off for a couple of weeks. Actually, our scheduling guru at CNBC, Alex Crippen, told me if I don't use all of the days I've accumulated by the end of next month, I'll lose them. I consider myself a hard worker, but I'm not that generous. So, off I go.
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There's a flurry of selling going on this morning in shares of the biopharma Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Overnight the embargo lifted on the long awaited results of the company's mid-stage test on a new type of Hepatitis C drug. Two studies show that six months out 60% and 65% of patients had no detectable virus in their blood.
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This morning we got more evidence about the havoc generic Zocor is wreaking on all of the companies that make brand-name statins--the pills to fight cholesterol. AstraZeneca is the latest casualty. On a down day in the markets AZN is one of the biggest losers in the sector.
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Medical devices firm Smith & Nephew (S&N) posted a 16 percent rise in quarterly earnings on strong demand for a new hip implant, but its shares tumbled as an unchanged outlook disappointed investors.
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Yet another chapter in the unfolding saga of Genentech's Avastin being used instead of Lucentis to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The other day I blogged about the new "Open Letter" on the company's homepage announcing that it's delaying the implementation of its attempted crackdown on the cheaper, similar cancer drug being used...
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Today's the day Eli Lilly was expected to get a Food and Drug Administration decision on the first-ever one-a-day impotence drug. Right now, the company sells Cialis for use as needed. But men could pop this one every day--like an aspirin or multi-vitamin--so the drug would always be "on boa
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This morning Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Eli Lilly and Alkermes announced the highly anticipated test results on their once-a-week, Type 2 diabetes drug. One analyst recently called this the most important biotech data of the second half of this year. Many expect the drug to become a multi-billion dollar blockbuster.
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In a remarkably candid "Open Letter" on the homepage of its web site Genentech is taking a step back from implementing its new restrictive policy over the use of the cancer drug Avastin in lieu of Lucentis for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of adult blindness. I had recently blogged about the company's action and angry reader response to it.
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TheStreet.com's senior biotech writer Adam Feuerstein broke this story earlier today, but now we've confirmed it independently. The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is changing its ways.
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Pfizer has been using Dr. Robert Jarvik, the inventor of the Jarvik Artificial Heart, for quite some time now as its Lipitor "celebrity" pitchman. But recently I've noticed something remarkable creeping into his copy--the script he reads for TV and radio spots and the text that appears in the print ads.
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British health authorities today announced that starting next fall, all 12- and 13-year-old girls will have to get the controversial shots to prevent the sexually transmitted virus that can lead to cervical cancer. Merck and Sanofi-Aventis are partners on the vaccine Gardasil and the UK-based GlaxoSmithKline makes a similar one Cervarix.
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Shares of WellCare Health Plans plunged as much as 61 percent Thursday, a day after federal and state government agents searched its headquarters in Tampa, Florida.
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What's the best way to stock a large-cap value fund?
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Shares of Eli Lilly fell more than 6 percent on Thursday, after the drugmaker halted two small trials of blood clot preventer prasugrel, the company's most important experimental drug.
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If the stock closes down at least 4.46% today (as I write this it is off nearly 7%) Eli Lilly will suffer its worst one-day loss in more than four years, according to our resident statistical expert Robert Hum. If it were to close off more than 7.79%, Hum says it would be the stock's biggest one-day fall since Oct. 23, 2002--almost five years to the day.
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On a day when the markets are selling off, shares of the world's biggest biotech company--by sales--are holding their own. There are a few things that could be buoying Amgen's stock. The company won a huge patent battle yesterday, it reports earnings after the closing bell today and an analyst has upgraded the stock to "Outperform".
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Shares in the world's second biggest drug company, GlaxoSmithKline, are giving back all of yesterday's gains in early trading this morning. That's because sales of its embattled diabetes drug, Avandia and other Avandia-related products took a huge dive in the third quarter. Down 48% in the U.S. from the same time last year.
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It isn't moving the stock, but Dendreon this morning announced that it has signed up all of the patients for the big clinical trial that could lead to its prostate cancer drug, Provenge, winning Food and Drug Administration approval. The completion of enrollment was not unexpected, so that's why people aren't trading on the news.
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What can I say? I love alliteration. But investors in the drugmaker are probably in no mood for a cute, clever turn of phrase. SGP is absolutely getting hammered this morning after coming in with third quarter earnings below expectations.
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My recent posts on Genentech trying to crack down on doctors using its cheaper cancer drug Avastin instead of the more expensive Lucentis to treat patients with age-related macular degeneration--elicited a lot of emails from readers all over the world.