Biotech sector drags on Wall Street

Jittery investors drove a second week of a selloff of biotech stocks as investors took their profits in some of the biggest outperformers worried that the sector had reached a peak. Gilead Sciences fell 4.9 percent and Biogen Idec was off by 7.7 percent for the week. For the week, the Burrill Biotech Select Index fell. That compared to the Nasdaq Composite Index, down 2.8 percent, and the S&P 500, down 0.5 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the week flat.

Veterinary products company Heska was the week's biggest gainer, up 20.8 percent after it reported fourth quarter results. The company posted a record operating income of $2.8 million, compared to $720,000 in the same period last year.

Exelixis' shares were hammered after the biotech said its interim analysis done and the late-stage trial of cabozantinib as a treatment for prostate cancer would continue to as is. For investors, this meant that the investigators could not yet say the study was a success. Three other recently approved drugs for castration-resistant prostate cancer-Johnson & Johnson's Zytiga, Medivation's Xtandi, and Bayer's Xofigo-have deemed successful based on interim data. Shares of Exelixis ended the week down 46.3 percent.

Baxter International says it plans to split into two separate companies in order to maximize its long term growth prospects. One company will be focused on biopharmaceuticals and the other on medical products. The move follows similar recent moves by Abbott Labs, which spun out its biopharma unit into AbbVie, and Pfizer, which spun out its animal health unit Zoetis in an IPO.

A group of telehealth industry veterans have launched a new initiative with a mission to deliver access to healthcare worldwide. The TeleHealth International Partnership, or TIP is led by Jay Saunders, considered the father of telemedicine and Bernard Harris, an astronaut physician, both of whom are affiliated with the American Telemedicine Association. The initiative was orchestrated by Paula Guy, CEO of Global Partnership for TeleHealth.          

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A research group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has discovered a new way to make large concentrations of skeletal muscle cells and muscle progenitors from human pluripotent stem cells. The new procedure that converts stem cells into muscle cells is another step toward moving the use of stem cells into the clinic.