U.S. stocks traded much lower for most of the day on Monday before staging a late rally that saw the Dow barely close above water. A late round of heavy buying in financials still saw small-caps broadly finish the sessions lower. Nearly every sector in the Standard & Poor's SmallCap 600 ended to the downside, paced by energy and materials stocks.
Even as health care reform looms, the basket of healthcare stocks is still not done attempting to reach for higher highs. The US spends $2 trillion annually on healthcare, or 18% of the gross domestic product. And it could reach 34% by 2040, according to a White House report issued last week. Is there still any doubt that the BioMed stock sector is where the action is? What volatility! Certainly, while most of the market was down, many still found action in Monday's Medical Movers.
Angiotech Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANPI)(TSX:ANP) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had granted 510(k) clearance for the Option Inferior Vena Cava (IVC) Filter in the United States. News about the company's implantable device to prevent pulmonary embolism sent its shares up 39.41% on Monday. The device will be sold in the United States for use in both permanent and retrievable indications. Pulmonary embolism occurs when there is a sudden blockage in a lung artery.
Coming in behind them were shares of Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:ARNA) which climbed Monday after the company said its obesity drug candidate lorcaserin helped patients lose and keep off weight in a clinical trial. Arena said patients who took lorcaserin had "highly significant" weight loss in their first year, and they were more likely to maintain the weight loss in their second year than those who took a placebo. The company, which announced the results at the American Diabetes Association conference in New Orleans, said lorcaserin patients fared better in terms of cardiovascular risk, and the drug was not associated with heart valve problems or depression.
Roundig out the top 3 was Chindex Intl. (NASDAQ:CHDX) which has been climbing steadily from its $3.50 lows in mid-march. In China, the company provides Western health-care goods and investors feel that as China's economy grows, so too shall Chindex. We'll have to keep an eye on that stock to see if they're right.
On the flip side, shares of Incyte Corporation (Nasdaq:INCY) lost a little steam after climbing steadily on Friday in anticipation of Incyte's presentation of clinical results for its Phase IIb trial of INCB13739, an orally bioavailable inhibitor of the enzyme 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (11beta-HSD1), at the American Diabetes Association (ADA) 69th Scientific Sessions being held in New Orleans. The results from this double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase IIb trial involving over 300 patients with type 2 diabetes showed that treatment with once-daily doses of INCB13739 significantly improved glycemic control, but investors chose to sell on news after buying on rumor.
Meanwhile, Progenics Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:PGNX) announced that its collaborator, Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. in Osaka, Japan, has begun clinical testing in Japan of RELISTOR(R) (methylnaltrexone bromide) subcutaneous injection, the first-in-class medicine approved in the U.S., Canada, the European Union, Australia and Latin American countries for the treatment of opioid-induced constipation. So after starting the day on that news up at $5.75 why the dip? Well, on the same day, Progenics announced the discontinuation of development for PRO 206, a pre-clinical compound for the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, in line with its ongoing initiative to allocate resources to the most important programs in order to increase operating efficiencies, and that it will instead focus on its second-generation HCV-entry inhibitor portfolio, anticipating selection of a new development candidate in 2010.
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