The Burrill Weekly Brief | April 14, 2014
Personalizing Cancer Therapies with a Mouse
Podcast: April 14, 2014
Treating cancer has long been a trial and error process for doctors, but Champions Oncology is hoping to take the guesswork out of choosing the right therapy through the use of its mouse avatars. The company engrafts a patient's tumor in mice to determine what drugs are most effective. We spoke to Joel Ackerman, CEO of Champions Oncology, about the personalization of cancer therapy, the benefits the mouse avatars provide, and how the same technology is being used to improve drug development.
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BY THE NUMBERS
Celladon's gene therapy granted breakthrough status, shares rise
Investors continued their month long selloff of previously fast-rising momentum stocks over fears of such shares having reached their peak performance. General investors, who had poured billions into biotech to ride its upward momentum, now worry that these companies may be overvalued. The Burrill Biotech Select Index dropped 3.4 percent for the week. The market sell-off affected not only biotech but also other volatile sectors as all the major indices fell. The Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 3.1 percent for the week, the S&P; 500 was off by 2.6 percent, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the week down 2.4 percent.
Celladon was the week's biggest mover, rising 24 percent for the week. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration awarded the biotech a Breakthrough Therapy designation for its gene therapy in mid-stage development for patients with advanced heart failure.
Shares of Regado Biosciences fell 38.7 percent during the week, plunging after the biotech priced a follow-on offering of 10 million shares at $6 a share. The offering was priced at a 16.4 percent discount to its closing price on the previous day. More than 4.4 million shares changed hands on Friday, compared to average trading volume of about 0.2 million shares per day.
BIGGEST MARKET MOVERS FOR THE WEEK ENDING APRIL 11, 2014
TICKER
COMPANY
CLOSING
PRICE
4/4/2014
CLOSING
PRICE
4/11/2014
PRICE
CHANGE
PERCENT CHANGE
ADVANCERS
CLDN
Celladon
9.98
12.38
2.40
24.0%
AGIO
Agios Pharmaceuticals
35.48
43.32
7.84
22.1%
QCOR
Questcor Pharmaceuticals
67.87
80.12
12.25
18.0%
RARE
UltraGenyx Pharmaceuticals
50.67
58.99
8.32
16.4%
POZN
POZEN
7.69
8.54
0.85
11.1%
DECLINERS
TSE:4588
Oncolys BioPharma
14.61
7.74
-6.88
-47.1%
RGDO
Regado Biosciences
9.55
5.85
-3.70
-38.7%
PBYI
Puma Biotechnology
106.41
76.17
-30.24
-28.4%
KIN
Kindred Biosciences
18.94
14.66
-4.28
-22.6%
MGNX
MacroGenics
26.06
20.38
-5.68
-21.8%
Includes life sciences stocks with closing price of $1 or more on April 4, 2014
Biotech IPOs Cool Amid Market Jitters
As public market enthusiasm wavers, companies going public face tougher terms.
Biotech IPOs have cooled considerably since the selloff of biotech stocks that began March 21. The two biotechs that went public on U.S. exchanges during the second week of April met with a muted reception by investors growing wary of a biotech bubble.
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BURRILL INDICES
12/31/13
4/4/2014
4/112014
Week Change
Year Change
Burrill Select
952.86
973.24 940.55 -3.4% -1.3%
Burrill Large-Cap 1165.34 1186.13 1143.01 -3.6%
-1.9%
Burrill Mid-Cap 537.96 511.04 497.33
-2.7%
-7.6%
Burrill Small-Cap 143.25 222.10 206.60 -7.0%
44.2%
Burrill Diagnostics 215.62 233.03 222.47 -4.5%
3.2%
Burrill Personalized Medicine 150.29 168.14 163.75 -2.6%
9.0%
Burrill Biogreentech 186.93 183.48 181.55 -1.1%
-2.9%
NASDAQ 4176.59 4127.73 3999.73 -3.1%
-4.2%
DJIA 16576.66 16412.71 16026.75 -2.4%
-3.3%
S&P; 500 1848.36 1865.09 1815.69 -2.6%
-1.8%
Amex Biotech 2330.43 2499.57 2374.30 -5.0% 1.9%
Amex Pharmaceutical 468.07 495.22 481.22
-2.8% 2.8%
NASDAQ Biotechnology Index 2369.53 2356.60 2251.53 -4.5%
-5.0%
The annual rebalance of the Burrill Indices took place on October 1, 2013.
Mallinckrodt To Buy Questcor for $5.6 Billion
Deal adds high-value specialty drug to pharma's growing pipeline.
Global specialty pharmaceutical Mallinckrodt says it will merge with U.S.-based Questcor Pharmaceuticals in a cash and stock deal valued at about $5.6 billion. Questcor's primary product is H.P. Acthar Gel, an injectable drug used to management difficult-to-treat autoimmune and inflammatory conditions, among them multiple sclerosis relapses in adults and infantile spasms. Questcor's sales of Acthar, practically its only source of revenue, were $761 million in 2013, up 50 percent from the previous year.
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HHS Secretary Sebelius Resigns
Obama nominates director of Office of Management and Budget as her successor.
In a White House ceremony, President Barack Obama officially announced the resignation of Kathleen Sibelius as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary. Her resignation comes after overseeing the rollout of the Administration's Affordable Care Act and its health insurance exchange.
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Study Highlights Opportunities to Reduce Spending on Costly Specialty Drugs
New report says payers could benefit by transitioning specialty medications from the medical to the pharmacy benefit.
Specialty drugs present a challenge for payers as costs for these complex and expensive drugs consume an increasing portion of overall health care spending. In fact, specialty pharmacy spend is expected to rise from $92 billion in 2012 to $235 billion by 2018. And more than half of specialty medication spending currently occurs under the medical benefit of insurance plans. Moving that benefit to a pharmacy benefit can produce significant savings for healthcare payers by improving management of specialty drugs, according to a new report.
Read More Here
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