Shares of Amylin are ambling higher today after two destructive trading days.
First, last Friday, Novo Nordisk put out a press release saying preliminary data show its drug works better than Byetta. And then, yesterday an analyst downgraded the stock just ahead of the company's long anticipated release of long-term results on its once-a-week version of Byetta.
So, today the shoe's on the other foot for NVO. You can hear what AMLN CEO Dan Bradbury thinks of Novo's Friday press release in the video clip below, from his "First on CNBC" interview on "Squawk on the Street" this morning.
The stocks have changed direction after Amylin, Eli Lilly and Alkermes announced that after one year patients on once-a-week Byetta saw a key measure of their blood sugar level drop two percentage points and their weight go down nearly 10 pounds.
FBR biotech analyst Jim Reddoch calls the results "unprecedented." David Kliff of the "Diabetic Investor" newsletter says, ""Quite frankly the results...aren't great they're astonishing." Rodman & Renshaw's Mike King in a research note to clients writes that they're "incredibly consistent results."