Reviewing Today’s Action
A mixed market today with a slight edge to the bulls. Immunogen(IMGN $12.28) up 4% continues its run from yesterday on positive data from its collboration with Roche on T-DM1 (trastuzumab) an antibody coupled with a cell killing agent (chemotherapy) from Immunogen showing improvement in progression-free survival in breast cancer patients. Seattle Genetics(SGEN) is our portfolio pick for antibody-drug conjugates(ADC) with five drugs in the clinical pipeline, but both companies are on the buy list for RBC Capital markets. Both stocks are up 40% over one year.
Illumina(ILMN $68.96) is up 1.6% on an outperform reiteration by Leerink Swann forecasting new highs in sequencer instrument sales for Q1 and Q2 and higher gross margins for H2 due to product mix with consumables being 70% of product revenue. Target price is $79-81.
Other notable movers in the portfolios are :
Cardiovascular Sciences(CSII $11.75) up 2.75%, Cubist (CBST $30.44) hitting new highs, Regeneron (REGN $42.80) continued weakness down 1.83%. Albany Molecular(AMRI $4.37) our turnaround pick for 2011 is trying to come back from recent lows of $4.11.
ETF’s were up slightly -FBT,IBB and XBI-all up less that 0.5%.
Although the Cephalon (CEPH) Board rejected the Valeant (VRX) offer it is hard to say that Cephalon will remain independent as a sweetened or competitive offer should keep shareholders happy.
Sangamo (SGMO $7.70) is down 7.87 % after announcing it will raise $51M in an a stock offering at $7.70. Ariad (ARIA $8.08) reached a five year high today up 2.15%. Cleveland BioLabs (CBLI $7.75) was up 3.47% today and 125% for one year on heavy volume. CBLI is a biohazard play with Protectan, a radio-protectant molecule with medical and defense applications in clinical trials.Revenues are forecasted to grow from the $15m level in 2010 to $32M for 2011 and the stock was recently upgraded by Wedbush to Outperform.