The new biological science is evolving at the speed of light. As a matter of fact, the bright penetrating light of the genomic revolution is effectively reaching the dark corners where the utmost reality remained hidden since millions of years. The new light enabled the insight to match the sight in divulging the buried secrets of body at the molecular level. With the most advanced tools ever created by human minds, scientists have reached a stage where they can spend much less effort in solving much more puzzles on the road towards solving the problems of diseases at their root-origin. The successful are those researchers who keep their eyes open and their minds prepared. More...

We heard them all. We heard all they said, we mean the pessimist and the optimist following the approval of Seattle Genetics’ drug Adcentris™ (brentuximab vedotin) for Hodgkin lymphoma and for systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL). More...

Congratulations. A great technology, the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) technology, which is perfected by the two biotech firms, Seattle Genetics (SGEN) and ImmunoGen (IMGN) has yielded the first approved drug. Yes, the FDA has granted accelerated approval of Adcentris™ (brentuximab vedotin) developed by Seattle Genetics (SGEN) for two indications:  More...

One of the currently intriguing evaluations of a biotech firm is that of Array Pharmaceuticals (ARRY). Its stock has been incapable of luring investors regardless of how large is the number of its cancer products, how encouraging is the news about clinical trial results, or how generous are the upfront and promised milestone payments and royalties by the collaborating pharmaceutical companies. Array is a biotech firm that created an extraordinarily effective small molecule dug discovery and design technologies. Its technologies are state-of-the-art, built over advanced biochemistry and molecular biology. They include, high throughput screening, virtual screening, protein x-ray crystallography, structural databases and computational modeling – all assembled around a chemoinformatic databases and a library that has all sorts of molecules to pick from. The selection of molecules is made possible through its wide electronic laboratory notebook that enables scientists to generate novel predictive databases suitable for designing novel drugs out of existing molecules This drug discovery capability, which was seen by many as the most defining criterion in Array’s value, does not seem to included by the  evaluators of biotech firms. More...

It was crazy. During the market’s dive, Gilead’s (GILD) stock was oversold. The stock experienced a selloff after having been snubbed for years never mind it has contributed to turning a killer virus into a tamed manageable disease, or that its revenues and incomes have exceeded Wall Street exaggerated expectations.      More...

But first, let us remember what we wrote in yesterday’s article related to the market’s situation. We read:  “The question is, when would big funds and institutions, sitting on billions of dollars decide that time has come to buy at the price of sand what’s much more important than gold? When would they decide to upgrade what should be upgraded and downgrade what deserves a downgrade in case any stock remained overvalued? Is this not what puts the market back on its tracks, so it could resume its function? Are there any stocks that analysts feel that they might have bottomed during the stocks’ slaughtering?” More...

At this stage, we are more interested in Ariad’s (ARIA) product pipeline than in the financial results of an era where the firm will soon move from a development-stage to a revenue-generating biotech company. Our logic could be the same as that, which led Harvey J. Berger, M.D., chairman and chief executive officer of the firm to begin his financial results’ announcement by writing about the outstanding progress the firm has made towards advancing its pipeline of cancer-drug candidates. The man wrote about the firm’s expectations about the near-term drivers of shareholder value. He wrote about interim data that will be presented later this year on ponatinib trial. More important and impacting is that Merck, the firm’s partner on ridaforolimus has already filed for regulatory approval of the cancer drug with the European Medicines Agency in the European Union, and the firm’s expectation that Merck will submit a new drug application in the U.S. shortly. Another drug, AP26113, will also begin clinical development this quarter. More...

Gilead Sciences (GILD): Fingers of traders on the sell button as of a routine practice has produced an initial decline in GILD price after refreshing financial results. The firm has exceeded analysts’ exaggerated expectations. Nobody was stunned about the stock’s initial decline, as everybody has become accustomed to the rule of thumb – sell on good news and obviously on bad news, i.e., sell, sell, sell; that’s all. The initial selling was initiated before and even after the announcement of Gilead’s second quarter financial results. More...

In early March 2011, we gave a brief history of HIV treatments. The article has also referred to recent studies demonstrating that early treatment with highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) further improves survival of asymptomatic patients with higher CD4+ T cell counts. Instead of fading away as many studies do, these studies were accompanied with parallel studies demonstrating that the prophylactic use of HAART succeeded in shielding exposed individuals from contracting HIV. These studies, no doubt, were favorable to Gilead Sciences (GILD), as demonstrated in the stock’s recent performance. What makes this news important is the fact that sustained treatment with these drugs for to avert the reactivation of the virus and the progression of AIDS subjects the patients to dangerous adverse effects and the drugs to the risk of viral resistance. More...

Micromet (MITI) added another important collaborator, Amgen (AMGN), to a long list of large and small drug developing companies that are attracted to Micromet’s BiTE technology. Amgen/Micromet agreement looks fair for both. It fits Amgen’s strategy of focusing on adding next-generation products to its pipeline and helps Micromet’s financial requirements during the development of its promising proprietary cancer programs. Amgen wanted to select from among three BiTE-based drugs against three undisclosed solid tumor targets. The giant biotech will pay upfront, milestone, and other payments in a deal that could be worth over $900 million for the two selected drugs, or half of this amount if it selects only one drug, in addition to double-digit royalties in the event of approvals and sales. More...