Prohost Letter #438 End of the Year Issue  2019 Happy New Year 2020 The NASDAQ reached 9000 for the first time in the market history on December 30, 2019. However, on the last trading day of 2019, the Nasdaq Composite Index closed at 8,945.99 after giving back 60.62 points or 0.7%. During the departed year, however, the stock exchange was boosted by the outperformance of …

The Week in Review #48 Holiday Edition ******************** Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah! We Wish You a Happy New Year Filled with Excellent Health, Peace of Mind, Prosperity and Happiness What a Year for Biotechnology What happened in the biotech sector toward the end of 2019 is briefed in this Review as we focus on the performance of our picked firms’ stocks’ prices. We will …

Firstly, Forty-Seven and IVERIC bio  We remind that the two condemned stocks Forty-Seven (FTSV) and  IVERIC bio (

The Week in Review #43 This Past Week After hearing hints about the trade war between China and the United States being avoided the market reversed course from faltering to flying at the speed of light. This trade war replaced all important factors that would usually affect the market performances. Unemployment is the lowest since 1969 and is expected to cause a bullish market, but …

AstraZeneca: Farxiga for Heart Failure with Reduced Ejection Fraction  AstraZeneca (AZN) has good news. Many of them are extremely positive. However, the firm’s stock is still struggling to get this pharmaceutical company out of the oversold territory where it has been living since the beginning of the year.    Among the recent good news came the results from a Phase 3 trial using AstraZeneca’s SGLT2 inhibitor …

AstraZeneca and Merck PARP Inhibitor Lynparza The AstraZeneca (AZN) and Merck (MRK) PARP inhibitor Lynparza (olaparib) has been granted approval in Europe for first-line maintenance monotherapy . . . This content is for paid subscribers. Please click here to subscribe or here to log in.

News We Loved to Hear  The First and Only Approval of a Specific Product for Postpartum Depression ZULRESSOTM The FDA granted approval of Sage Therapeutics’ (SAGE) ZULRESSOTM (brexanolone) injection. A product for the treatment of the condition known as postpartum depression (PPD). This makes Zulresso the first and only medicine specifically approved by the FDA to treat PPD; the most common medical complication of childbirth. The product …

Halozyme Therapeutics (HALO) and argenx (ARGX) announced a global collaboration and license agreement offering argenx the right to use Halozyme's ENHANZE® drug delivery technology to develop multiple subcutaneous product formulations for current or future argenx product candidates. The agreement provides argenx exclusive access to ENHANZE® for any product targeting the human neonatal Fc receptor, FcRn, including argenx's lead asset efgartigimod (ARGX-113) and up to two additional targets, potentially shortening …

Merck (MRK) announced its Q4 2018 financial results. The firm outperformed itself and delighted us with regard to picking its stock on time. Merck compensated those who bet on it the day it was added to the Prohost Portfolio that comprises only the biotech and bio-pharmaceutical companies with solid scientific fundamentals. The press release issued regarding Merck's financial results started with Kenneth C. Frazier, Chairman and …

Prohost Letter #427 End of the Year Decisions ~ Part 2 As a result of the unexpected volatility in the stock market, we carefully reassessed each and very stock we picked for the Prohost Portfolio. Consequently, we had to change many of our 2019 targets in all 7 tables which represents the whole portfolio of companies we believe are offering lucrative investment opportunities. On January 3, …

In the NEWS AstraZeneca (AZN) announced a collaboration with Cancer Research UK to launch a center of excellence in genetic screening, cancer modelling and big data processing aimed at accelerating the discovery of new cancer medicines. During the announcement of the news, Mene Pangalos, the firm’s Executive Vice President, Innovative Medicines & Early Development, said, the best science doesn’t happen in isolation, which is why AstraZeneca …

Stage III (locally-advanced) NSCLC is commonly divided into three sub-categories: IIIA, IIIB and IIIC, defined by how much the cancer has spread locally and the possibility of surgery. The difference between Stage III and Stage IV disease (cancer (metastasized to distant organs)) is that Stage III is treated now with curative intent. The majority of Stage III NSCLC patients are diagnosed with unresectable tumors. It …

In the Week in Review posted yesterday on our website that is experiencing several attempts on its life, we wrote about some firms, including Amgen. In the Amgen’s article we tried to let the reader recognize the importance of Amgen’s (AMGN) asthma product tezepelumab and how it differs from all other asthma drugs on the market, including the conventional tablets, inhalers and infusions. The Novel …

The Week in Review #29 PROHOST AGGRESSIVE PORTFOLIO  - The aggressive portfolio hosts biotech firms with solid scientific fundamentals and prominent scientists whose stocks have plummeted following some setbacks. A setback could be a failure of an investigational product to meet the endpoints of its clinical trial or that the small biotech firm has taken long to achieve its goals . . . This content …

ASTRAZENECA AstraZeneca’s (AZN) Checkpoint Inhibitor Imfinzi significantly improved Overall Survival (OS) for Stage III Non-Small Cell Cancer Imfinzi (durvalumab) achieved positive overall survival (OS) results for the Phase III PACIFIC trial in patients with unresectable Stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose cancer did not progress following platinum-based chemotherapy and radiation. An Independent Data Monitoring Committee concluded that the trial met the second of two primary …

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved AstraZeneca (AZN) Checkpoint inhibitor drug Imfinzi® (durvalumab) for patients with unresectable Stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose disease has not progressed following concurrent platinum-based chemotherapy and radiation therapy (CRT). Explaining the importance of this approval, Scott J. Antonia, M.D., Ph.D., Chair of the Thoracic Oncology Department at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, Florida and investigator …

Acorda (ACOR) stock was up around 10% reaching over $28 in premarket trading. The stock is trading now around $27 with its gains oscillating between $2 – $2.20. The enthusiasm for ACOR seems to be about rumors that Biogen (BIIB) or possibly other Asian drug makers might have demonstrated the interest in Acorda. What’s going on with Acorda? In June 2017, the stock rallied on news about positive clinical trial …

Amgen (AMGN) and Kirin Holdings (Kirin) announced an agreement upon, which Kirin-Amgen, a joint venture between the two companies, will redeem Kirin’s shares in the joint venture and as a result, Kirin-Amgen will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amgen. The Kirin-Amgen joint venture was established in 1984 as a 50-50 joint venture between Amgen and Kirin to fund the global development of Epogen® (epoetin alfa). The scope of …

AstraZeneca’s (AZN) checkpoint PD-L1 inhibitor Imfinzi and NewLink Genetics’ (NLNK) IDO inhibitor indoximod will be combined and tested in Phase 2 randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials together with the standard of care chemotherapy treatment for metastatic pancreatic cancer. AstraZeneca and NewLink Genetics will jointly fund the phase 2 trial of the combination that  NewLink will be sponsoring  It is a Phase 2  trial that will be …

Prohost Letter #413 FROM BIOTECH TO BIOPHARMA - New research, new findings, new discoveries of trustworthy and doubtful biomarkers more understanding of genomics and proteomics, in addition to more breakthrough diagnostic procedures, are all gifts of the life-science revolution. This revolution started with molecular biology, the discovery of the DNA and its functions, which was the prelude to genomic understanding, gene sequencing, and genetic engineering and …