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Sebelius on Vaccines

24 Nov 2009

Discussing whether a new $487M investment from the government will help speed up the production of the most important vaccines, with Kathy Sebelius, Health & Human Services secretary and CNBC's Mike Huckman.

The New Formula for Faster Vaccines

24 Nov 2009

Novartis is opening on Tuesday the country's first plant to produce flu vaccines using cell cultures. These vaccines are faster, better and cheaper to make than egg-based methods, reports CNBC's Mike Huckman.

Novartis Opens 1st US Plant for Flu Vaccine

24 Nov 2009

Cholesterol Drug Battle: Niaspan vs. Zetia 16 Nov 2009
Abbott Laboratories' Niaspan beat Merck's Zetia in a new study. CNBC's Mike Huckman has the details.

Cardiologist Grades Cholesterol Drug Study

16 Nov 2009

Abbott Laboratories' Niaspan beat Merck's Zetia in a new study. Dr. Steven Nissen, chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at The Cleveland Clinic, shares his reaction with CNBC's Mike Huckman.

Merck's Cholesterol Drugs Under Pressure

16 Nov 2009

A new study is putting Merck's cholesterol drugs under pressure today, reports CNBC's Mike Huckman, with Ken Frazier, Merck Global Human Health president.

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CNBC ON DIGG

The Amgen D-mab D-bate

Published: Wednesday, 8 Jul 2009 | 11:25 AM ET

Text Size

By: Mike Huckman
Reporter

Amgen
Analysts are busy jawboning this morning about the side effect Amgen revealed cropped up in a large, late-stage study of its bone drug known as D-mab for breast cancer patients whose disease has spread to the bones. It's known as osteonecrosis of the jaw, or ONJ, for short. The jaw decay is a known side effect with another type of popular drugs for osteoporosis, like Novartis' Zometa [NVS Loading... () ] , which was the drug Amgen [AMGN Loading... () ] used in this head-to-head study with D-mab.

AMGN shares are up huge on the data showing D beat Z. Many analysts think the kind of dual-purpose drug could become a billion-dollar-plus blockbuster. The FDA is scheduled to first decide whether to approve it for osteoporosis in October.

I haven't seen a flurry of biotech analyst commentary like I'm seeing this morning about D-mab since Genentech was a stand-alone, publicly-traded company. I think analysts must have been hungry for something to once again sink their teeth into. Several of them are raising their price targets on Amgen's stock, but others are being a bit cautious.

Deutsche Bank's Dr. Mark Schoenebaum calls it a "best-case efficacy outcome." But he acknowledges the Street wants to see the actual numbers on ONJ, which will likely be presented at a scientific conference later this year. "For now, we're saying hang on," he told clients in a voicemail blast. Les Funtleyder, the healthcare analyst at Miller Tabak, writes in a research note to clients, "The data looked clean with limited negative side-effects. However, we believe the Street's estimates for D-mab (greater than $3 billion in peak annual sales) will eventually prove optimistic." And even though Amgen says the jaw decay problem was infrequent, Bernstein biotech analyst Geoffrey Porges says, "Efficacy trumps ONJ questions. (But) this does leave open the possibility that there were more cases of ONJ in the D-mab arm, which would be a disappointment, though not sufficient, in cancer patients, to materially affect adoption and share." And Leerink Swann's Steve Yoo writes, "It does imply that ONJ was seen in the D-mab arm which may come as a surprise to investors."

DB has done business with Amgen. Leerink Swann, Bernstein, and DB make a market in AMGN. DB and a part of Bernstein owns at least one percent of AMGN.

And one more thing. Those who follow my blog may recall that I've called out Amgen in the past for less-than-helpful media relations. Well, I'm pleased to report incremental progress.

We got a courtesy call from the company giving us a heads up about 10 minutes before the D-mab press release went out that news was pending at around 5:30 p.m. ET yesterday. We were not told what it would be about, just that an announcement of some kind was coming. But that, at least, allowed me to alert the "Fast Money" producers that they may need to come to me for breaking news from the "CNBC Alerts Desk," to cue up some AMGN stock charts just in case and got me in position, ready to go. From a technical, logistical standpoint, it's a big help. But there's still room for improvement. Amgen would not offer us an exec for an interview. It was only making its Chief Medical Officer available to the print media.

What's up with that?