Yesterday, Wednesday July 19, Vertex’s (VRTX) stock added over 20% to its value, recording a new all time high. Why? On Tuesday the firm announced a better than technical analysts’ and its own expectations’ results in three trials testing its cystic fibrosis (CF) drugs VX-152, VX-440 and VX-659 combined with two the its cystic fibrosis drugs. The positive data came from Phase 1 and Phase …

Prohost Letter #408 AT A GLANCE - Continued from the Previous Prohost Letter #408 In the Past issue #407, we picked the following firms: NEUROCRINE BIOSCIENCES (NBIX) Treating Tardive Dyskinesia CYTOMX Improving On Cancer Immunotherapy CELYAD SA (CYAD) Bringing Solutions To Immunotherapy Problems Please Read the articles written about these firms in the Issue #407 In This Issue We Add  NEW LINK GENETICS...

Prohost Letter #406 A Special Prohost Issue SYNOPSIS REASONS FOR THE FOLLOWING PROHOST PICKS RALLIES VERTEX Vertex (VRTX): Great news about 2016 revenues & earnings Growth and pipeline. FROM YESTERDAY: Tremendous Revenues Growth. Cystic fibrosis (CF) revenues grew up around 75%. FOR TOMORROW:  Boosting  the  pipeline  value  by Advancing CF novel correctors into Phase 2 trials while Producing and advancing new CF correctors. PROJECTIONS: Continued …

Prohost Letter #405 Synthetic Biology (3) We have already decided upon becoming shareholders the day synthetic biology firm called Synthetic Genomics turns public. We reiterate that firms specialized in synthetic biology are numerous private and publicly traded. Some are promising, others are walking in place and a few have plummeted. With the general underperformance of synthetic biology stocks, many shareholders abandoned ship. Investors felt that …

Vertex (VRTX) entered into a licensing agreement with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany for the worldwide development and commercialization of four research and development programs that the firm believes represent novel approaches to cancer treatment Merck KGaA will license two clinical-stage programs targeting DNA damage and repair, along with two additional novel pre-clinical programs. Upon the agreement Vertex will receive an upfront payment of $230 million, …

Prohost Letter #403 Part 2 Continued From Wednesday Instead of continuing yesterday article about Agenus, we decided to post it all so that the reader can find it in one place. Important changes and additions have been made especially under the headline “Near-­Term Priorities, Possibilities and Catalysts”, which are important to read. Learning More About AGENUS Since its inception, Agenus (AGEN), previously known as Antigenics, …

Pfizer accepted to pay $14 billion in cash to acquire Medivation. It is important for investors to know what Pfizer is after with regard to this acquisition so that investors could sense the current deep-pocketed biopharmaceutical firms’ preferences in selecting their takeover targets. Recognizing the facts behind Pfizer’s decision could also protect investors from being mislead by negative bloggers who, while serving their own agendas, …

GILEAD & GENMAB To Access Genmab’s (GEN) bispecific antibody technology, Gilead (GILD) signed a new agreement with Genmab. The King of HIV treatment objective is to use its exclusive license from Genmab to produce an HIV bispecific monoclonal antibody therapeutic. Gilead is paying around $5 million in upfront payment and up to $277 million in milestones. Genmab will also be entitled to one-digit royalty of …

Prohost Letter #392 February 28, 2016 - How could it be possible for any genius to make intelligent guesses about the market's next moves when highly regarded experts, including Nobel Prize winners in economics, remained quizzical about the recent horrifying performances of publicly traded stocks? Since the beginning of 2016, the stock market has been made to look as if a runaway train with many passengers …

Incyte: A Good Company Facing Irrelevant Investors’ Reaction  Incyte decided to stop an early ongoing trial of a combination treatment ruxolitinib (Incyte) plus regorafenib (Bayer) for colon cancer after observing the combination wasn’t working. Both drugs are approved for different indications and both are doing well in the market. At this moment in the market chaos, this news looked as if a terrible thing that must cause an unwarranted …

Prohost Letter #390 COMPANIES USING CRISPR GENE EDITING TOOLS - The Firms Launched with CRISPR Patents Either Pending or Disputed! What Does This Mean? What are these Firms’ Priorities? But First: A Reminder In the last issue, Prohost #389, we pinpointed the gene editing technologies and techniques and demonstrated the difference between gene editing, which is genetic engineering, i.e., making changes in the genes themselves, and antisense …

Europe Approves Orkambi® The European Commission has granted Marketing Authorization for Orkambi® (lumacaftor/ivacaftor), for cystic fibrosis (CF) in people ages 12 and older who have two copies of the F508del mutation. There are approximately 12,000 people with CF ages 12 and older who have two copies of this mutation. Vertex will now begin the country-by-country reimbursement approval process across the European Union (EU). They said: The …

Prohost Letter #386 An Evaluation of Prohost Picks and Some Other Interesting Biotechnology Companies (Part 2) (Continued from Previous Prohost Letter #385) See Page Listening to Top-tier biotech firms’ presentations we could not resist appreciating their accomplishments, which made us dare to predict that the time has come for the self-serving preachers to find it extremely hard to convince shareholders to to sell stocks of …

Prohost Letter #379 Investors Concerns, Excitments and Expectations It is understandable the fact that bullish and bearish analysts have opposite opinions (opposite wishes too) on biotech firms’ pipelines products and clinical trial results. They differ in assessing important news and in applying different criteria in their evaluation in order to establish proof of concept of their personal views. Articles are filling the media with contradicting …

Prohost Letter #378 Part 1 Views and Visions TOP-TIER BIOTECHNOLOGY COMPANIES GILEAD We wrote a lot about Gilead (GILD), doing our best to protect investors against negative gossip that filled the media and aimed at misleading and insulting investors’ intelligence. We never lowered our target based on the perpetrated, fabricated stories, which made many investors lose confidence in Gilead’s strategy and sell their stocks, thus, …

AS WE AND PREDICTED, the FDA Pulmonary-Allergy Drugs Advisory Committee (PADAC), voted in favor of approving Vertex’s (VRTX) drug Orkambi™ (lumacaftor/ivacaftor) for people with Cystic Fibrosis (CF) ages 12 and older who have two copies of the F508del mutation in the CFTR gene. The FDA is expected to make a decision on the approval of Orkambi by July 5, 2015 under the Prescription Drug User …

Prohost Letter #377 PICKING BIOTECH FIRMS Before Investing in Them Raising the bar in designating small drug developing firms as biotechnology firms has occurred several times since 2011. In that year, many technologies were tremendously enhanced, which enabled them to realize superior goals, i.e., produce safer and more effective breakthrough drugs for chronic debilitating and life-threatening diseases. Prohost Portfolios picks, which have outperformed other industries’ …