United Health chooses Gilead's Harvoni as its preferred hepatitis C treatment over AbbVie's Viekira Pak. Three other huge insurers have done likewise. The battle continues as Express Scripts went with the Viekira Pak. Now, they just have to figure out how to pay for it as both run about $90,000 for a 12 week treatment. SMZ [...]
By Tracy Staton The shake-up at the top of Salix Pharmaceuticals continues. On Monday afternoon, CEO Carolyn Logan became the second C-suite executive to step down in the wake of an inventory snafu disclosed late last year. Logan will retire as of Jan. 30, the company said. CFO Adam Derbyshire made his exit in [...]
Since its lows in mid-October, biotech stocks have sparkled, particularly the Big four – Amgen (AMGN), Biogen Idec (BIIB), Celgene (CELG), and Gilead (GILD) – which have demonstrated sustainable growth pathways. With the market’s renewed volatility in recent days, they have pulled back some, which only made them much more reasonably priced. But the more [...]
Shares of Isis Pharmaceuticals closed Friday at an all-time high of $62.32. Isis edged up 45 cents for the day, nosing out the previous record of $61.87, reached Thursday. The Carlsbad biotech is up 63 percent from a year ago, and more than six times its price on Dec. 12, 2012, when it closed at [...]
Teva stalled out? Maybe? Like the rest of the space, TEVA has had a nice ride, but maybe time to step aside. See the article and chart. Don't be surprised if Teva's ($TEVA) revenue numbers don't meet analysts' expectations in 2015. According to the company's forecasts, generic competition to top-seller Copaxone and foreign currency [...]
In partnership with activist investor Bill Ackman, the company made a hostile bid to purchase Botox-maker Allergan. Valeant Pharmaceuticals is putting its acquisition growth strategy on hold in favor of reducing debt and boosting its stock price, according to Reuters. Since 2008, Valeant has spent about $19 billion on 40 acquisitions. Now, the company will [...]
Merck ($MRK) may have to rethink its math on the Cubist ($CBST) buyout. Announcing the $9.5 billion transaction Monday, the company pointed to an earnings bump beginning in 2016. But later in the day, a U.S. court nixed all but one of the patents covering its top seller, Cubicin--and that patent expires in 2016. With [...]
Studyops, San Francisco, CA. 11/26/2014, and the Center for Occupational Health received an award for a new RANDOMIZED, DOUBLE-BLIND, PLACEBO- AND ACTIVE-CONTROLLED Clinical Trial for patients with Fibromyalgia. Dr Viladimir Bokarius will be the lead principal investigator for the project, which will take place in our Richmond California location. Studyops continues to be the Sponsor's choice [...]
