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CTIC up 20% PM, don't own any
March 9 (Reuters) - CTI BioPharma Corp said its experimental blood cancer treatment achieved the main goal of a late-stage study.
Data from the study showed that the drug, pacritinib, was significantly better than the "best available therapy" as prescribed by the patients' physician to treat myelofibrosis.
Myelofibrosis is a form of blood cancer that makes the bone marrow produce too much of any type of blood cells.
Snippet from the FT
The price of iron ore, a key steelmaking ingredient, dropped below $60 a tonne for the first time since 2009 as China vowed to cut overcapacity in the steel industry and close mills that violate pollution standards.
Benchmark Australian iron ore for delivery to China fell $2.80, or 4.5 per cent, to $59.30 a tonne on Thursday, according to The Steel Index, a price reporting agency. Iron ore futures on China’s Dalian exchange fell 3.1 per cent to a three-month low.
Iron ore is a key profit generator for several large mining companies, including Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, and Vale of Brazil.
China’s Premier Li Keqiang said downward pressure on the economy was building and the government would cut overcapacity and tackle pollution in his opening speech to the National People’s Congress in Beijing on Thursday. He also set the country’s economic growth target at around 7 per cent, the lowest target since 1999.
China’s official steel industry association said this year that up to 70 per cent of the industry could not meet the country’s environmental standards. <snip>
The FT puts the price for PCYC at a total of $19bn which would leave some room for further appreciation.
If that came from the Daily Mail I'd dismiss it, but the FT deserves some respect.
Pharmacyclics is considering a sale that could value the US cancer drugs maker at about $19bn, according to people familiar with the matter, suggesting that consolidation in the pharmaceutical industry is far from over.
Short Attack coming soon ??
Terrifying, isn't it?
All of them happen to address liver diseases.
A cirrhotic portfolio.
Late to mobile.
This is at least the third time that the Mail has trundled out this rumor. Stinks of pump 'n dump
OT
The Greeks seem to be involved in a game of chicken in which there are no good outcomes. They probably know they should swerve, but if they do they forfeit their credibility far into the future.
Interesting game.
LONG article on drug costs in the FT, with a focus on GILD
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/7e3571da-b08c-11e4-92b6-00144feab7de.html#axzz3RNYTCbxX
Excerpts - sorry, hard to summarize:
.... Gilead has become the symbol of out-of-control drug prices in the US. A 12-week treatment costs $94,500, or $1,125 a pill, attracting unwanted attention from politicians and doctors, who identify the group as one of the most hated companies in pharmaceuticals.
Peter Bach, a doctor and director at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, reflects the views of many in his profession when he accuses it of “corrupting behaviour”.
<snip>The number of people with hepatitis C is huge, with more than 3m infected in the US alone. As soon as Gilead launched its new drugs, medical professionals warned that they risked busting the system. But the return for Gilead’s investors has been huge, as demonstrated by the company’s 2014 profits, which more than tripled to $13.3bn.<snip>
Steve Miller, chief medical officer at Express Scripts, the largest of the pharmacy benefits managers which negotiate with drug companies, has had Gilead in his sights for more than a year after it refused to offer meaningful discounts.
A self-styled scourge of high drug costs, he set out to engineer a price war as soon as AbbVie launched its rival Vikera drug in December. Dr Miller agreed to treat Express Scripts patients exclusively with Vikera in exchange for a hefty, but undisclosed, discount. The market reaction was swift: investors wiped more than $20bn off Gilead’s market value in a single day.
Etc, etc.
This is a snippet from an article in the FT on the growing adoption of robots in manufacturing. This part might be subtitled "Europe's death wish"
The uptake of industrial robots will vary between countries as well as between industries, depending on factors including wage costs and labour regulations that could limit employers’ ability to replace workers with robots. BCG expects the fastest adoption will come in South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand, which have heavy concentrations of the industries that are capable of high levels of automation, higher labour costs than some of their low-wage competitors, and limited employment protections that would prevent job cuts.
Other relatively rapid adopters are expected to be China, Japan, the US, the UK and Canada.
The countries likely to be slowest to embrace the new robots include more heavily regulated economies of Europe including France, Italy and Spain, as well as Brazil and India, according to BCG.
Yes. I posted that as an example of the Alan Abelson syndrome - it's gonna happen, just watch, it's gonna happen. Alan was eventually proven right - for a time.
Comment in the FT.
Unfortunately there have been so many predictions of a hard landing for China that the market ignores them. Maybe 2015 is the year.
FT
Investors are venting their anger at Petrobras after Brazil's state-controlled oil company failed to calculate how much has been stolen in a vast corruption scandal that has shaken confidence in the world's second-largest emerging market.
Samantha Pearson reports that the company decided to publish its unaudited financial statements just after 4am in Brazil on Wednesday, originally due in November, to avoid breaking some of its debt covenants.
However, in a blow to investors, it said it was "impracticable to measure in a correct, complete and definite manner" its losses from an alleged bribery and kickback scheme at the company - believed to be the largest of its kind in Brazilian history.
Analysts had widely expected Petrobras to book a writedown of up to $20bn in what would have been a vital first step to regain credibility in the market and the trust of its auditors PwC, who have refused to sign off its accounts as police investigate the allegations.
"They release an unaudited financial statement in the dead of night, which no one trusts, and they leave out the corruption!", said one Brazilian on Twitter, calling for the impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff over the scandal.
Others were appalled by a surprise R$2.7bn writedown on two of the company's 'Premium' refineries in the northeast of Brazil, which Petrobras said on Wednesday that it had decided to halt last week.
"Impeachment for administrative improbity!," said one shareholder in an emailed note, quoting previous statements from Ms Rousseff about the importance of the two refineries
About forty executives from Brazil's largest construction firms and former Petrobras directors have been arrested during the past few months over the scandal.
They are accused of conspiring to inflate the value of Petrobras contracts by up to 3 per cent for everything from refineries to ships in order to pay bribes and funnel cash to politicians, mainly from the ruling Workers' Party (PT) and its allies.
Without audited results, Petrobras may struggle to raise new capital and risks triggering a technical default for violating the terms of some of its existing debt, according to analysts and lawyers.
Earlier this month, some creditors agreed to accept unaudited third-quarter results instead as long as they were released by the end of this week.
However, credit ratings analysts say the Brazilian government may still have to provide the company with emergency funding - a move that would not only strip Petrobras of its investment-grade rating but also endanger Brazil's own coveted investment-grade status.
With over $135bn in total debt as of the end of September, Petrobras ranks as the world's most indebted oil producer.
On Wednesday Petrobras said it was taking measures to ensure it would not have to "visit the debt markets in 2015".
The scandal comes at a particularly delicate moment for Brazil's economy as President Dilma Rousseff struggles to win back investors' trust with a series of market-friendly measures and prevent another technical recession this year.
It also comes as Petrobras faces large operational challenges from the plummeting global oil price. According to the unaudited results, Petrobras's net income slumped 38 per cent to R$3.09bn in the third quarter from R$4.96bn in the previous three months as a result of the refinery writedowns.
Thanks to you and PGS for the advice.
Have you opined on the CAR-T safety issue?
Apologies if you have.
OT -- What make was that generator?
TIA
I thought it was scotch tape.
FT
When David Pyott, chief executive of Allergan, hands out his business card, he describes it as “a collector’s item that is about to go out of fashion”.
After Actavis completes its $66bn takeover of Allergan in a few months, his job will be taken by Brent Saunders, who appeared as a white knight buyer in October, during an ugly 10-month takeover battle in which Valeant tried to snare Allergan with the support of hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman.
In a joint interview with Mr Saunders on the fringes of the annual JPMorgan healthcare conference, Mr Pyott expresses relief that Allergan did not fall into the clutches of Valeant, a sentiment he says is shared by many in the pharma sector who see the company as a cost-cutting enemy of R&D.
“The feeling is universal. Everybody in the industry is coming up to me and saying ‘thank God’,” says Mr Pyott. “It’s a little bit like the US State Department in the 1960s — the whole theory that if Vietnam fell, then Thailand was going to be next.”
Who would have been next on Valeant’s list? “I won’t name names, but the monster has to be fed,” he says.
Brent Saunders, chief executive officer of Actavis Plc, speaks during a Bloomberg Television interview in New York, U.S., on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014. Actavis Plc outspent rival Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. in the $64 billion contest for Botox-maker Allergan Inc. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg *** Local Caption *** Brent Saunders
©Bloomberg
Now the Actavis-Allergan deal has been done, shareholders have started asking searching questions about the integration of the combined group, which will have a market capitalisation of around $140bn. Actavis is still digesting its $28bn acquisition of Forest in July, a task Mr Saunders describes as “90 per cent complete”.
According to people familiar with the situation, Mr Saunders, 44, is considering recruiting Mr Pyott, 61, to the Actavis board, partly to address these concerns. The two men appear remarkably at ease with one another, sitting side by side in a restaurant booth just off San Francisco’s Union Square.
Many of Mr Saunders’ admirers temper their praise with the observation that he does not stay still for long. Less than two years ago, he was chief executive of Bausch & Lomb, a company he sold, as chance would have it, to Valeant for $8.7bn. He then moved to Forest, before promptly handling that company’s sale to Actavis.
So is he addicted to deals? “Absolutely not — we were not out trying to buy Allergan. It was not a company that should have been for sale,” Mr Saunders says. “In terms of large, transformational M&A — things on the scale of $10bn plus — we’re going to take a pause and digest.”
“But perhaps in the next couple of years if the right opportunity presents itself. We are always going to move quickly and opportunistically to build value and growth for our shareholders.”
Pharma cos
Mr Saunders says the group is in dialogue with “dozens” of potential targets “all the time” and that it will continue doing small and medium-sized deals in five therapeutic areas: dermatology, ophthalmology, the central nervous system, women’s health and gastrointestinal.
The combined company will be run as a “growth pharma” group — investing in R&D rather than just “managing its portfolio for earnings” by sweating existing drugs.
Allergan Chief Executive David Pyott speaks during an interview in New York July 8, 2014. Allergan Inc agreed to be bought by Actavis Plc for $66 billion, putting an end to a hostile bid by activist investor William Ackman and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc
However, he says it will target R&D spending in areas where it is most competitive, rather than trying to develop revolutionary new treatments. He says that of the world’s top 20 best-selling drugs, just “two or three were truly discovered in the laboratory”, with the rest being new takes on existing compounds. “Yet big pharma spends about 30 per cent of its R&D on discovery”.
Instead, Actavis and Allergan have a record of buying or licensing drugs that are already being developed and bringing them to market, and for taking existing drugs and using them to treat new illnesses. Mr Pyott points out that Allergan’s female acne gel was first used 70 years ago as a treatment for leprosy.
Mr Pyott has a strong sense of history. He notes that Allergan was spun out of SmithKline in 1989 when it merged with Beecham. At this year’s healthcare conference, he says, all the chatter is that Actavis “is actually going to be bigger than GlaxoSmithKline — now that really puts things in perspective”.
There is a suggestion on the Yahoo board (sorry!) that Black Rock is accumulating shares.
One thing to remember, the shorts don't bash a bad company.
They don't? Why?
Since I believe shale requires operators to keep running to stay in place, decisions of this sort should have a cumulative effect. But with NG below $3 and oil below $48, we're still in a deep hole. And BHP holds that production will not be affected in 2015.(See bolded part)
FT
BHP Billiton is cutting its shale oil investments and reducing the number of rigs it operates onshore in the US by 40 per cent due to the drop in oil prices.
The world’s biggest miner by market capitalisation said on Wednesday that the revised drilling programme would boost efficiency but added that its shale spending programme remained under review.
“In petroleum, we have moved quickly in response to lower prices and will reduce the number of rigs we operate in the onshore US business by approximately 40 per cent by the end of the financial year,” said BHP.
This will reduce the number of rigs it operates to 16, down from 26. BHP’s drilling programme will be focused on its higher quality liquids-rich Black Hawk acreage in southern Texas.
Noting that many of BHP’s peers were also cutting rig numbers at their shale oil operations in the US, Glyn Lawcock, UBS analyst, said: “I would expect this to have an impact on production. In the case of BHP we expect impact to financial year 2016 production, but not necessarily financial year 2015 production, given rigs will come offline towards the end of 2015.”
Global crude prices have tumbled nearly 60 per cent since June to less than $49 a barrel, as a result of weaker growth in demand for oil, booming US shale production and the decision by the Opec oil cartel in November not to cut output. This is prompting oil producers to slash capital spending and employment to bring costs down.
BHP had highlighted shale resources in the US as a focus for investment. It spent heavily during the commodities boom to increase its presence in the US shale gas and liquids sector, and was set to invest about $4bn annually in its fields from a group capital spending budget of about $15bn.
The resources group said the reduction in drilling activity would not affect its 2015 financial year production guidance and remained confident that shale liquids volumes would rise by about 50 per cent in the period. BHP said it would cut oil exploration by 20 per cent to $600m in 2015, compared with its previous guidance.
The company will reveal the scale of cuts to its drilling budget next month when it releases its midyear earnings. It said it would make impairments of $200m-$250m to underlying profits after the sale of some assets in Louisiana and the Permian basin.
All BHP’s key commodities have come under pressure since the group said last year that it would spin off non-core assets into a separately listed company, to be known as South32.
Bold move
Shouldn't apply to a company with SLB's record, but have you heard the expression - there are old pilots, and bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots?
FT
Schlumberger is to invest $1.7bn for a minority stake in Russia’s largest drilling company in one of the boldest attempts so far to take advantage of the turmoil in Russian markets.
The world’s largest oil-services company by market capitalisation will take a 45.7 per cent stake in Eurasia Drilling by backing a deal to delist its global depositary receipts from the London Stock Exchange. As part of the deal, Schlumberger will have an option to buy the rest of the company after three years.
Schlumberger’s investment is one of the largest by a western company since the US and EU first imposed sanctions on Russia over the annexation of Crimea in March. It comes after Russian equities have fallen 45 per cent in the past year, with Eurasia Drilling down 71 per cent as Russia’s oil-services industry was hit by a combination of sliding oil prices, rouble volatility and western sanctions.
“They’re taking a very long-term view and are not deterred by the market volatility,” said one person close to the deal.
The take private deal and Schlumberger’s subsequent purchase of Eurasia Drilling shares would value the company at $3.2bn, or $22 per GDR, an 81 per cent premium to Monday’s closing price. The deal would see a group of Eurasia Drilling’s major shareholders and management, led by chief executive Alexander Djaparidze, retain a 54.3 per cent stake in the company.
The tumble in oil prices has triggered consolidation in the oil-services industry, as cutbacks in oil groups’ spending plans hurt profitability. Schlumberger last week said that it would cut 9,000 jobs and took a $1.77bn pre-tax charge in its fourth-quarter results.
The Russian oil-services industry has suffered the additional blow of western sanctions that have squeezed financing across the economy as well as imposed specific restrictions on sales of western equipment for shale, Arctic and deepwater projects.
The sanctions on the Russian oil industry have pushed western oil-services groups to take a step back, with Schlumberger withdrawing a significant number of its US and European executives from the country.
A person close to the deal said that the two sides were confident that it would not be affected by sanctions.
Eurasia Drilling, which was spun out of Lukoil’s in-house drilling unit a decade ago, is Russia’s leading onshore drilling company accounting for 28 per cent of all metres drilled as well as a major provider of rigs in the Caspian Sea.
The deal will further deepen a relationship that started in 2011 when the two companies formed a strategic alliance and agreed to swap assets.
Unless the SF keeps appreciating.(edit) Against the USD, that is.
You got it at least as well as I did. The takeaway for me is that the JIT model allows rapid adjustment to falling prices, and that may foretell a V shaped recovery as supply is overcurtailed..
I've always thought that, were I to find myself as the shaky head of a small country, my first act would be to manufacture a crisis in relations with the US, threaten the personal safety of the US ambassador and Embassy staff, then expel him ignominiously. The mob would give me its unquestioned support.
Not a very original idea. It's been done.
Putin remains imperturbable, on the surface, while disaster looms.
It's said that his standing among the vast bulk of the Russian people remains unimpaired, and that his foreign adventurism boosts his domestic support.
That could become a problem.
This news has been posted on iHub (http://investorshub.advfn.com/ALPS-Medical-Breakthroughs-ETF-SBIO-29404/) but I thought it was interesting enough to repost here
New Biotech ETF Steers Away From the Traditional
Investors love health care exchange traded funds and they like the more traditional offerings. That much is confirmed by the roughly $2.5 billion combined that flowed into the Health Care Select Sector SPDR (XLV) and the Vanguard Health Care ETF (VHT) last year.
However, ETF issuers are taking increasingly focused, refined approaches to health care ETFs. The ALPS Medical Breakthroughs ETF (SBIO), which debuted on Dec. 31, is a prime example.
SBIO tracks the Poliwogg Medical Breakthroughs Index (PMBI), which is comprised “of small-cap and mid-cap pharmaceutical and biotechnology stocks listed on U.S. stock exchanges that have one or more drugs in either Phase II or Phase III U.S. FDA clinical trials,” according to a statement released by ALPS.
That approach is similar to that of the BioShares Biotechnology Clinical Trials Fund (BBC) , which also debuted last month. BBC’s holdings are companies with a lead drug candidate in a Phase I, Phase II or Phase III trial. [Unique Biotech ETFs Come to Market]
SBIO, the new ALPS ETF, features a tilt toward more mid- and small-cap firms, stocks that often rocket higher on positive clinical trials data.
Many of the blockbuster drugs from the 1990s and 2000s have lost patent protections over the past few years,” said ALPS Vice President and Portfolio Manager Michael Akins in the statement, “and Big Pharma is scrambling to fill its pipelines. Given the lengthy process and high rate of failure for new drug development, it makes sense for the established companies to look toward new therapies being developed by smaller innovative firms.”
Although SBIO does not hold companies with market caps in excess of $5 billion, that does not mean the ETF presents significant risks to investors. SBIO’s underlying index only features companies with enough cash to survive at least two years at current burn rates.
SBIO’s largest holding is a 4.3% weight to NPS Pharmaceuticals (NPSP). The new ETF’s other top 10 holdings include Receptos (RCPT), Seattle Genetics (SGEN) and Akorn (AKRX).
This one was never in doubt.
NVS bid is up modestly in the AH
FT's take.
FDA paves way for biosimilar drug approval
David Crow in New YorkAuthor alerts
The US pharmaceuticals watchdog has published a bullish assessment of a copycat biotech drug, paving the way for it to approve its first ever “biosimilar” — a novel category of medicine that looks set to cut America’s ballooning healthcare costs.
Reviewers at the Food and Drug Administration said a generic version of Neupogen, which counters some of the harmful side effects of chemotherapy, was “highly similar” to the original drug and had “no clinically meaningful differences?.?.?.?in terms of safety, purity and potency”.
The FDA’s opinion of the medicine is a boost for its developer Sandoz, a generic drugmaker owned by Switzerland-based Novartis. Last year it applied for US approval of the drug, known as Zarzio, which seeks to copy the original medicine made by US biotech group Amgen.
Aaron Gal, an analyst at Bernstein, said the FDA’s opinion meant it was now likely that Zarzio would be approved at some point this year, making it the first ever generic version of a biological drug — or “biosimilar” — to be given the green light in the US.
In recent years pharma groups have invested huge sums in biological drugs, which are made using living cells, in part because they have been virtually immune to the threat from generic alternatives. They have tried to recoup the cost of developing the drugs by charging high prices, which have strained healthcare systems.
Although many of the patents on these biological drugs are set to expire soon, it had been impossible for generic copycat versions to win regulatory approval in the US, the world’s largest healthcare market. That started to change in 2009, when the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act was passed as part of the “Obamacare” reforms, bringing the US in line with Europe, where biosimilars have been allowed for a decade.
Analysts at Credit Suisse predict biologics will account for 36 per cent of worldwide spending on drugs in 2018, against 31 per cent last year and 24 per cent in 2008.
The dominance of these drugs is even more pronounced among the most popular medicines, such as Humira, AbbVie’s arthritis treatment, and Herceptin, the breast cancer drug made by Roche. Credit Suisse expects biologics to account for almost 80 per cent of spending on top 10 drugs this year.
US policy makers hope the introduction of a new wave of biosimilars will help bring down the country’s rising healthcare costs. Rand, a non-profit research organisation, predicts that biosimilars will reduce spending on biological drugs by $44bn over the next decade, resulting in big savings for patients and their healthcare providers.
The FDA’s new regulatory regime allows for biosimilar drugmakers to win quick approval by proving there are no clinical differences between their medicines and the ones they are trying to copy, meaning there is no need for them to to invest in lengthy and expensive trials. Sandoz is the first company to apply for approval using this pathway, making its version of Neupogen a closely watched test-case.
The FDA published its opinion on the generic version Neupogen in a report ahead of a meeting of its oncology advisory committee on Wednesday.
Amgen is trying to delay the approval of Sandoz’s drug in the courts and has filed a lawsuit claiming that Sandoz is not following the correct rules in seeking the go-ahead from the FDA. The US accounted for nearly 84 per cent of Neupogen’s $1.4bn in sales in 2013.
Sounds plausible to me, and I've never been to the yahoo board.
FGEN - no reason, not even the hint of a reason. ????
EDIT - a 22% gain merits some attention.
Need a few more like that to put a floor under WTI (and NG). Oil down another buck this morning.
Not unlike stock prices and global climate, too many variables changing in importance seemingly randomly.
Sounds like an untapped market, starting from a low base.
My favorite version of that thought is:
Luck is the residue of design
FGEN - I have no idea - FGEN does not generate a lot of buzz. There is a FGEN board here (http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=109147823) but it's new and hasn't seen much activity yet.
It's not actively traded.
FGEN deftly sidestepped the carnage that overtook the rest of my biotechs
Vanda Pharmaceutical Inc. VNDA, +20.07% shares are up 18% in premarket trade after the biotech firm said late Monday it had settled licensing arbitration proceedings with Novartis AG NVS, +0.73% and will reacquire U.S. and Canadian rights to the schizophrenia treatment Fanapt.
Own it in my SI contest portfolio but not in real life
Accession conditions do not appear too onerous-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_the_World_Trade_Organization
edit - even the EU is in, after all, and they aren't exactly paragons of free trade.