this stock gets no love what so ever


Biomaven has noted a few times that alectinib, a decent drug in his opinion, has a time to market advantage. Things move fast in the biotech world.

(Searching for reasons ARIA is impervious to good news)

Wouldn't you concede the possibility of 15 doller? 15 dollar might be a stretch, I'll admit

Snippet from an article on CEO pay in the NYT

Companies high on the overpayment list included Salesforce.com, a software company; Vertex Pharmaceuticals; and the Vector Group, a tobacco concern.

All three companies had a return on capital below that of their peers over the last five years, the analysis showed. Nevertheless, the pay received by these company’s chief executives was lush.

FT

The most extensive genetic analysis ever carried out on a specific cancer shows that the most common and dangerous form of leukaemia is actually 11 distinct diseases that respond very differently to treatment.

The study of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), a lethal blood disorder, is a milestone in the move toward personalised diagnosis and treatment of cancers based on their individual genetic characteristics.

Although some gene-based cancer treatments are already used — the best known is Herceptin, which is only effective against breast tumours with an overactive “Her2” gene — the personalisation of oncology is only just beginning.

“This is our first detailed look at how the genetic complexity of a cancer impacts on its clinical outcomes,” said Peter Campbell, senior group leader at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, which carried out the study with international partners.

“Two people may have what looks like the same leukaemia down the microscope, but we find extensive differences between those leukaemias at the genetic level. These genetic differences can explain so much of why one of those patients will be cured, while the other will not, despite receiving the exact same treatment,” he said.

The researchers studied the DNA of 1,540 AML patients who were taking part in clinical trials and found a total of 5,240 mutations in 111 genes associated with leukaemia.

These genetic changes clustered into 11 subtypes which responded differently to the two main treatments for leukaemia: intensive chemotherapy and stem cell transplantation.

AML is becoming more common. The UK recorded 2,900 new cases in 2013, a 73 per cent increase over the past 30 years. Although the prognosis for some other blood cancers, such as childhood leukaemia, has improved greatly, AML patients have not experienced such advances.

“It is a highly aggressive disease,” said Matt Kaiser of the research charity Bloodwise. “Most AML patients respond well to chemotherapy at first but the relapse rate is very high. Only 20 per cent survive for five years or more — and no new treatments have been introduced for at least 20 years.”

The genetic changes that take place as the disease evolves in a patient are better understood in AML than in any other cancer, said Elli Papaemmanuil, another member of the research team.

Although a few rare mutations may still be missing, those tracked in the study represent the vast majority of changes that play significant roles in AML. About half of the 111 genes were unknown five years ago.

Most AML patients respond well to chemotherapy at first but the relapse rate is very high. Only 20 per cent survive for five years or more — and no new treatments have been introduced for at least 20 years

Mutations are harder to track in solid tumours because they require tissue biopsies rather than blood tests, though a similar study is under way in breast cancer, linking genetic mutations to prognosis and treatment. It may be published before the end of this year.

Each cancer case involves a progression of DNA changes after the initial genetic trigger — and any test is a snapshot at a particular point in that evolutionary process. The results indicate the patient’s best course of treatment at that time.

The genes and mutations analysed in the AML study are a mixed bunch, Dr Campbell said. Some changes drive the proliferation of cancer cells, like pressing the accelerator in car; others remove the natural restraints that stop excessive proliferation in healthy people, like a driver taking their foot off the brake.

The latest research is expected quickly to influence clinical decisions about how to treat AML patients.

Dr Papaemmanuil, who moved recently to New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, said: “Every leukaemia patient coming into the hospital will have these tests done within the first week.”

The cost of a full AML genetic test is likely to be about £250 per patient, Dr Campbell estimated.

In the slightly longer term, the genetic information will help drug researchers come up with new AML treatments that are both more selective and more effective than the aggressive old-fashioned chemotherapy that is the only option today, he added.

The results are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Do you mean the MM is selling to the shorts at a discount?

VVUS

Stock price has only just about doubled since early in the year. People have reason to be dissatisfied wouldn't you agree?

Why is that, please? Corn only?

And they share a connection with Denner

Thank you

Are We On The Brink Of An Agricultural Boom?

Do you follow DBA?

NYT

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/magazine/warburg-effect-an-old-idea-revived-starve-cancer-to-death.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&viewport=desktop&module=more-stories®ion=top-stories-below&contentIndexValue=6&subIndexValue=0&feedIndexValue=10&groupKick=true&storyKick=true&summary=true

Starve Cancer to Death

Back in the 1950's I was the only foreigner in a group of Shanghainese in Hong Kong who met semiregularly for an evening of poker. Their preferred method of evaluating a hand emphasized the speculative, so I recognize the behavior!

Have to concede that's just about a no-brainer, but my experience with my no-brainers has not been a happy one

They need money to move forward this may have been the only way to get it.

Yes that's the simplest explanation, thanks. Occam's razor at work!

Agreed. For a potential purchaser, it introduces a layer of complexity to the buy/no buy decision

I can't figure out what ARIA was trying to achieve pragmatically.

The buy-back provision cannot be exercised before two years

PFE has reportedly entered the MDVN fray and sent the stock above 60 AH

ABT

Dew, were you surprised at the depth of the reaction to the SJM deal?

Turning on a dime seems like

FT


A run-up in China steel prices has heightened concerns in Beijing that mills could reopen, putting an end to hard-won reductions in excess capacity.

Average prices for rebar, a steel product used in construction, across the country pushed above Rmb3,000 ($463) per tonne last week for the first time since 2014.

The rebound in steel prices has sparked a surge of speculative interest in Chinese steel and iron ore futures, which the government has tried to curb by increasing transaction fees and warning retail investors against commodity trading.

Overheated markets have also sparked fears among authorities that steel capacity will come back online as mills rush to make good on high margins.

Excess production and a surge in exports from China have contributed to the global steel industry’s worst downturns in 50 years. Tata Steel, for example, has blamed a glut of low-priced Chinese steel globally fed by heavily-subsidised industry in China for making its high-cost British operations uneconomic.

China’s government aims to trim its bloated steel sector by 100m-150m tonnes of capacity in the next five years.

The provincial government in Hebei, which produces one-quarter of Chinese steel, has promised to “investigate or remove from position” officials who allow new mills or replaced mills in their jurisdiction, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Two years of declining demand saw prices in China slump last year. Extensive losses crippled steel mills across the country, providing an opportunity to close excess capacity.

Lossmaking steelmakers — known as “zombie companies” — are responsible for a debt build-up of Rmb3.27tn ($499bn) in the industry and an average debt-to-equity ratio of more than 70 per cent.

Have you seen anything from MDVN re what price it might consider acceptable?

As I recall, NOLs are not easy to monetize

There was an interesting NYT article,since expired, on the quality spectrum among VC's noting that the top tier's boards boast genuine academic sophisticates. the lower tiers - a lot less.

Theranos' board was made up of gliterati such as george schultz(!)and even Kissinger. Red Flag.

London Telegraph

IPF



The number of people suffering from an agonising mystery lung disease responsible for 1 per cent of all UK deaths is more than double what was previously feared, new research reveals.

Experts have demanded a dramatic increase of research funding for Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF), an incurable condition where scar tissue builds in the lungs, making it difficult to breath.

A study from the British Lung Foundation (BLF) found approximately 32,500 people are currently living with the disease, which kills about 5,300 people a year.
“These figures show more clearly than ever that tackling IPF needs to be made a priority.”
Dr Penny Woods, CEO of the British Lung Foundation

IPF mainly affects older people, and deaths are 60 per cent more common in men.

The NHS had been relying on figures, now ten years out of date, that had put the number of sufferers at between 10,000 and 15,000.

It is unclear whether the stark difference between the two numbers indicate IPF rates are rising or whether the new study is far more accurate than its predecessor.

While some clinicians speculate that the debilitating disease may be down to a combination of genetic predisposition and exposure to pollution such as dust, no causal link has been definitively proved.

The average life expectancy following a diagnosis is three years, although two drugs, each with significant side-effects, have recently come on the market which extend patients' post-diagnosis life-span by an average of two years compared to no treatment.

Currently the only way of surviving an IPF diagnosis is a lung transplant, of which fewer than 200 are available each year.
<snip>

Somewhat dated news, don't you think?

Pretty good surmise, may explain relatively muted response as the day wore on on Friday

From theTelegraph:



Sleeping immune cells which are already in tumours can be ‘woken up’ to fight even the most deadly cancers, scientists have discovered.

In order to evade the body’s defence mechanism, cancer cells have learned to flick a switch in immune cells which switches them off.

The switch is there to stop the body wrongly attacking harmless invaders, and is the reason that a mother can carry a baby – essentially a foreign body – without the immune system attacking the foetus.

Now scientists at Cancer Research UK and University College London have proven it is possible to use genetic editing to snip away the ‘off switch’ so that the immune system recognises cancer again.

Researchers say it is like ‘cutting the brakes’ and allowing immune cells to do the rest.

Dr Sergio Quezada, Cancer Research UK scientist and co-lead author from University College London’s Cancer Institute, said: “This is an exciting discovery and means we may have a way to get around cancer’s defences while only targeting the immune cells that recognise the cancer.”

The treatment would work by taking a biopsy of a tumour and then identify immune cells that are already inside. Those cells are likely to me most effective as the fact that they are in the tumour suggests they were trying to attack it before they got switched off.

Scientists then use a genetic editing technique called TALEN to remove the ‘off switch’. The edited immune cells are then multiplied in a lab and replaced back in the body.

Not only will the new cells fight cancer but they should prevent it from returning.
An IV drip
The genetically engineered immune cells would be transfused back in to the cancer patient Credit: Alamy



So far tests have only been carried out on mice, but tumours shrunk by 75 per cent, and 80 per cent of the disease mice were still alive after 70 days compared with non from the control group.

Dr Alan Worsley, Senior Science Communications Office at Cancer Research UK added: “I think this is quite exciting. We are essentially cutting the brakes. It’s very simple and elegant and could really help patients who have tried everything else and nothing has worked

“With chemotherapy it only keeps working until the drugs stop, but this will just keep going.”

Drugs which target the ‘off switch’ in immune cells are already available, but they can have debilitating side-effects and can send the immune system into overdrive. leading to it attacking healthy cells.

Professor Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician said: “We know that some cancers can switch off the cells of our immune system, and this interesting laboratory research suggests a new way that we might be able to get around the problem, although this is still some way away from use in the clinic”

The research was published in the journal Cancer Research.

TRIL
As I am the first to admit, my Thucycides is stronger than my knowledge of biotech, but that is an impressive listing of potential indications.

Good point

For this purpose?

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (George Santayana)

Four of the US’s largest hedge funds lost $900 million in value of their holdings in Allergan (AGN) on Tuesday, according to the Financial Times.

Hedge funds?

MDVN up nearly 15% AH on renewed bid speculation.

Take that Mrs Clinton.

MKC

A chart to make one's heart ache

I hope you're right. I see it as part of populist Trumpism

The possibility of Congress invalidating patents has implications that go beyond MDVN.

No wonder growth has been sluggish. Or maybe it's a future tsunami?

Nearly four years on from the start of the government’s Abenomics programme, Japanese companies are sitting on a record cash piles equivalent to nearly 50pc of the country’s entire GDP.

Possibly connected with the particular M.D.'s interest in the facility doing the test or procedure?

I've had GERN on and off since Okarma days and got flattened by the New Year avalanche. I think it's too late to sell now, but would appreciate any other views.
TIA

Thank you

Does the Celator/AML news affect Pona?