Biotech Remains Strong But Momentum Is Easing
Biotechnology stocks were positive today but major ETFs mixed with the FBT ($63.82) off 1.45%. Profit taking has hit some high fliers (AEGR,INCY) and many of our portfolio stocks are off their recent highs. Small and mid-caps are being sold off harder than larger caps with revenues and earnings. Momentum is easing.
Regeneron (REGN $302) is up over 7 % soaring once again near its recent highs above $300 (52 week high $320) as earnings beat forecast and raised its outlook for the Eyelea drug for age related macular degeneration (wet AMD).Forecasts for Eyelea were raised to $1.35-1.375B with Q3 earnings of $277M or $2.40 per diluted share compared to $1.72 in Q3 of 2012.The current PE is 37.61 with a PEG of 1.27.Total Revenue estimates for 2014 are in the $2.5B range with a Price to Sales of about 11.
ImmunoGen (IMGN $13.30) off 19.64% took a big hit as results of its Phase 2 lung cancer (SCLC) drug IMGN901 showed disappointing results compared to approved drugs. ImmunoGen, Inc. develops oncology drugs using its proprietary antibody-drug conjugate technology (ADC).This puts more pressure on the other ADC pipeline products in the clinic and royalties for the US approved Kadcyla product for HER2+ breast cancer.
Other movers in our portfolio are : Albany Molecular (AMRI $13.94) up 5.57%, Cubist (CBST $63.27) up 2.62% despite missing on earnings, and ViroPharma (VPHM $39.60) up 1.5% on strong product sales.
Alexion (ALXN $119.50) was down 2.76% on profit taking. The recent high was $125 with the 3 month base price of $105.