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The Burrill Weekly Brief | December 13, 2010

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Kindler Out, Read In at Pfizer
As Podcast: Podcast: December 13, 2010

Jeff Kindler's sudden retirement as CEO of the drug giant Pfizer stunned the industry. Kindler leaves Pfizer at a critical time for the company as it braces for the loss of billions in revenue as patent protection expires on its best-selling drug Lipitor among others. Ian Read, group president of the worldwide biopharmaceutical business, has taken over the post of CEO. We spoke to Adam Feuerstein, senior columnist for TheStreet.com about Kindler's departure, the selection of Read, and what it will take to make Pfizer the envy of the industry once again. Read More Here

By The Numbers

Ramius Offers to Acquire Cypress Bioscience—Again
Cypress shares rise 20 percent on the possibility of a sale.
After being twice rebuffed, hedge fund firm Ramius revealed that it was still hungry for a deal. In a letter sent December 9 to the board of directors of Cypress Bioscience, it outlined its willingness to acquire all of the specialty pharmaceuticals' outstanding shares for $5.50 per share. Read More Here

Biotech Industry Market Cap: $363.91 billion (up 0.8 percent for the week ending 12/10/10)

Performance of Select Blue Chip Biotechs
COMPANY
MARKET CAP
($B)
CHANGE IN
SHARE PRICE (%)
Amgen $50.92 0.32%
Gilead $30.53 0.96%
Celgene $27.04 -5.19%
Biogen $15.80 -1.06%
Genzyme $18.08 -1.58%

Biotech remains even as markets move up
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the week up marginally at .25 percent. Helping stocks close the week on a positive note was an encouraging trade report and signs that a proposed tax cut package would pass the Senate. The Commerce Department reported that the U.S. trade deficit fell to its lowest level in nine months in October. The NASDAQ composite index closed up 1.8 percent climbing to a new high as consumers showed more confidence in the economy. It was a lackluster week for biotech with the Burrill Biotech Select Index closing up a hair at .3 percent. Dragging on the index was Celgene with its shares tumbling 5 percent on news that two studies reported at the American Society of Hematology showed that patients in a group taking its drug Revlimid as a maintenance therapy had a higher incidence of certain types of secondary cancers than a control arm.

The Burrill Diagnostic Index jumped 7 percent on the strength of Beckman Coulter's 23 percent surge following analysts' reports that the company was positioning itself for a sale.

 

INDEX 12/31/08 12/31/09 12/03/10 12/10/10 % CHANGE (WEEK) % CHANGE (YEAR)
Burrill Select 300.33 312.47 354.86 355.87 0.28% 13.89%
Burrill Large Cap 379.7 461.85 518.77 517.12 -0.32% 11.97%
Burrill Mid-Cap 139.39 166.01 203.53 216.50 6.37% 30.41%
Burrill Small Cap 78.35 88.12 88.71 91.02 2.60% 3.29%
Burrill Genomics 59.69 159.87 161.74 158.41 -2.06% -0.91%
Burrill BioGreenTech - 100.00 141.05 143.39 1.66% 43.39%
Burrill Diagnostics 138.3 147.96 144.31 154.46 7.03% 4.39%
Burrill Personalized Medicine 79.63 91.71 100.36 103.29 2.92% 12.63%
Canadian Biotech 32.52 40.35 52.83 54.58 3.31% 35.27%
NASDAQ 1577.03 2269.15 2591.46 2637.54 1.78% 16.23%
DJIA 8776.39 10428.05 11382.09 11410.32 0.25% 9.42%
Amex Biotech 647.15 941.92 1174.48 1181.43 0.59% 25.43%
Amex Pharmaceutical 272.84 309.21 298.86 302.31 1.15% -2.23%

Cephalon Makes Big Bet on Stem Cells
Company enters global licensing agreement and takes equity stake in Mesoblast in deal worth up to $1.7 billion.
Cephalon is committing up to $1.7 billion in milestone payments and $130 million in immediate funding to Mesoblast, an Australian company developing stem cell therapies to battle dementia and heart disease. Read More Here

Putin Strengthens Russian Drug Industry
Prime Minister promises $3.9 billion to modernize Russia's pharmaceutical and medical sector.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wants Russia's drugs and devices to be made in Russia. To achieve that goal, he has promised $3.9 billion (122.9 billion rubles) in federal funding before 2020 to modernize the country's pharmaceutical and medical industry. Read More Here

States Now Fund Majority of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Most of $1.3 billion spent went to fund projects that were eligible under federal rules.
Restriction on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research sparked several states to establish programs to fund this work, but a new study finds that while state programs now fund a majority of human embryonic stem cell research conducted in the United States, fewer than a fifth of state grants are going to projects considered ineligible under federal rules. Read More Here

Contrave Wins Backing of FDA Panel
Victory for Orexigen and Takeda bring obesity drug a step closer to market.
Orexigen Therapeutics' experimental obesity drug Contrave cleared a crucial hurdle at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, allowing the drug to advance a step closer to possibly landing the agency's first approval for a new diet pill in a decade. Read More Here

Burrill Report Poll:
Would you want to be the CEO of a Big Pharma today? Tell us what you think.

OMG UR SO FAT
Mobile phones and social networks could be just what the doctor ordered.
At the end of a long day, I have been known to reach into the freezer and pull out a comforting pint of New York Super Fudge Chunk only to turn around to meet with the glare of Dr. Brunetti, who will look at me with her face mangled by disgust and disappointment, scan my body down to my protruding gut, and then back to my eyes as if to say, "really?" Read More Here

Reaching Out to China's Sick
Ideal Life and Novatech launch massive health monitoring program.
A new telehealth network launched by Ideal Life and Shandong Novatech Biopharmaceuticals is attempting to better connect more than 100,000 chronically ill patients in China closer to their hospitals and doctors in a country where access to healthcare is often stymied by cost and geography. Read More Here

DOJ Reaches $421 Million False Claims Act Settlement with Three Companies
The weekly round-up of failed trials, missed targets, and other business mishaps.
Abbott Laboratories, B. Braun Medical, and Roxane Laboratories (known today as Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane) have agreed to pay $421 million to settle False Claims Act allegations, the U.S. Department of Justice said. The settlements resolve claims by the United States that the companies engaged in a scheme to report false and inflated prices for numerous pharmaceutical products knowing that federal healthcare programs relied on those reported prices to set payment rates. Read More Here

Drug Discovery Center Wins NIH Approval
Goal is to better link basic research to drug discoveries.
The National Institutes of Health is moving ahead with plans to establish a new center intended to help translate basic scientific discoveries into new drugs. A recommendation for establishing the NIH's new center was approved in a 12 to 1 vote during a meeting of the Institute's Scientific Management Review Board held December 7. Read More Here

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