Life Science Sector Outperforms NASDAQ-100: Movers are ROSGD, VICL
Biotechnology stocks sold off about 0.65% overall as industry news and fundamentals were eclipsed by MACRO issues. Concerns loom about European debt, US debt ceiling and potential default. JPMorgan earnings helped buffer losses and Google earnings after hours were excellent so that should help tech(and adverting plays as well).. Notable biotech winners with good volume were Biomarin (BMRN $29.87) , SuperGen (SUPG $3.16) and United Therapeutics (UTHR $56.19) all up over 2%. Within the NASDAQ -100 Biogen(BIIB) and Vertex (VRTX) were down over 2%. Our mid-cap index of 35 biopharmaceutical companies was down only 0.33%.
Seattle Genetics(SGEN ) won approval for their lymphoma drug Adcetris from the FDA Panel as expected, and a complete FDA review is expected by August 30. SGEN has been in our biopharmaceutical portfolio since 2/09 at $11.85. Some analysts have put the stock on their acquisition list by big pharma but this may be too early as this is the first product for SGEN.
In the diagnostics/tools area Rosetta Genomics(ROSGD $1.75) came alive with a big upside presumably from the news of its miRVIEW lung microRNA molecular diagnostic test that differentiates neuroendocrine tumors from non small cell lung tumors (NSCLC). The stock soared over 44% to $2.43 before ending up at $1.75 on volume of 934k.a 1 for split is coming so watch out but the market cap is a miniscule $13.5M.A near term issue is cash because of a substantial burn. The Company has interesting biomarker platform technology so as the balance sheet is repaired we will look for value in this stock.
Vical (VICL $4.30 ) moved up over 9.77% after hours after announcing a deal with Astellas Pharma.
Other interesting news:
E. Coli Genetic Code Manipulated by Harvard Biologists in Research Effort – Bloomberg