Techs (QLD up 1.23%) outperformed biotechs today as Cisco bad news was forgotten. Biotech stocks treaded water today as all major ETF’s were flat. On the news front:
Cephalon(CEPH $58.20) was down 3.17% on heavy volume as investors sold on there earnings report and an FDA subpoena about their painkiller Fentora. The Company reported 2010 Net Sales of $2.761B a 28% increase over 2009 and Net Income of $657M a 40% increase over previous year. Sales guidance for 2011 is increased to $3.015-3.095B with Net Income increased to $665-688M or $8.70-9.00/sh. Stockholder Equity increased to $4.892B and Cash Flow decreased $487M. Despite the excellent financial results some analysts are concerned about prospects going forward such as risks from generic competition for Provagil.Cephalon also received a subpoena from the U.S.Post Office related to drugs used in the worker’s compensation plan such as off-label use of the cancer-pain drug Fentora.Cephalon shares are likely to be weak over the next several months without positive news.
Another one of our featured microcaps, Ivax Diagnostics (IVD $1.33) was up 29% today on volume of 595k shares. No significant news was reported other than on Wednesday’s report on FDA Clearance for the Mago 4s test for autoimmune and infectious diseases. Financial reporting will be next week. IVAX was featured in our Microcap spotlight on Dec 27 at 56 cents based on low price to sales ratio and turnaround potential.
SeraCare (SRLS $4.09) was down 7.9% on light volume after reporting good earnings for seventh consecutive quarter.Revenues for fiscal Q1 decreased 7% from $11.3 to $10.1 Q to previous Q.Net Income was up to $1.6M compared to $1.3M in the same fiscal Q of 2010 but needed a reorg benefit of $0.8M to achieve this result. Stockholder Equity moved up to $43.6M from $3.6M from same period prior year. Cash is $16.2M. The stock can be volatile with a 52 week range for the stock is $2.71 -$5.49. At a less than 2 P/S the stock still offers value.
Other Rayno Life Science movers today on volume were Illumina (ILMN $72.80) up 2%,Qiagen (QGEN $19.16) up 1.65%, Sequenom (SQNM $7.01) down 1.8%and ViroPharma (VPHM $16.64) up 1.16%. We added Albany Molecular (AMRI $4.56) yesterday as a value play at $4.68 and the stock is trying to find a base today on very light volume.
On the financing front, Optimer (OPTR $11.35) sold six million shares at $11.25. Proceeds will primarily finance clinical trials of its antibiotic Fidaxomycin to treat C.difficile infection(CDI). Approval of the drug by the FDA is expected by the end of Q3 2011.On Feb 7 the Company also announced a deal with the Japanese drugmaker Astellas.