Stocks and Sectors

Zacks.com submits:

Medtronic Inc. (MDT) has received several complaints from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ((FDA)) regarding the company’s study of a new pacemaker that can be used in a Magnetic Resonance Imaging ((MRI)) machine. The FDA has raised concerns over the small population size and missing data in the study.

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Zacks.com submits:

Eli Lilly and Co. (LLY) recently entered into a deal with Australian company, Acrux, which should help strengthen Lilly’s men’s health portfolio. Lilly acquired exclusive worldwide rights to commercialize Axiron, which is currently being reviewed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of testosterone deficiency (hypogonadism) in men.

As per the terms of the deal, Lilly will make an upfront payment of $50 million and $3 million on the transfer of manufacturing assets. Lilly will also pay $87 million to Acrux on the receipt of FDA approval for the product. Acrux could receive up to $195 million in commercialization milestones, and royalty payments on global sales of the product. Lilly expects to incur a charge of 3 cents related to this transaction in the first quarter of 2010.

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Jae Jun submits:

Insmed (INSM) released their fiscal 2009 results and the results are as I expected – not much different to Q3 results.

I first started following INSM back in November of 2009 because the company was trading below its net net value with the majority of its assets in cash. That was when the stock price was $0.78. The stock price is now $1.20, a 50% gain from November, but nothing has changed with the company since then, but there have been some major developments which I’ll get to later.

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Zacks.com submits:

Recently, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMY) and AstraZeneca Plc (AZN) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration [FDA] has accepted their application for reviewing the combination of a fixed dose of Onglyza (saxagliptin) and metformin for treating patients suffering from type II diabetes. While Onglyza is already available for the treatment of diabetes, metformin is a widely-used generic diabetes pill.

Onglyza is co-developed by Bristol-Myers and AstraZeneca. The partners submitted a New Drug Application [NDA] to the U.S. regulatory authority for saxagliptin/metformin HCl extended-release tablets on Dec 29, 2009.

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Zacks.com submits:

Recently, WellPoint Inc. (WLP) provided its financial outlook for fiscal 2010. The health insurer expects operating revenue of approximately $59.0 billion in fiscal 2010 as against $60.8 billion reported in 2009, down approximately 3%. The decline is primarily attributable to lower insured membership, among other factors.

The projection assumes that economic headwinds will continue to affect the company’s business throughout 2010. Specifically, the high unemployment level, which resulted in a 3.9% year-over-year decline in medical membership to 33.7 million in 2009, is expected to bring down medical membership further by 400,000 people in 2010.

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Dobromir Stoyanov submits:

Abbott Laboratories (ABT) engages in the discovery, development, manufacture, and sale of health care products worldwide. It operates in four segments: Pharmaceutical Products, Diagnostic Products, Nutritional Products, and Vascular Products. The company is a component of the S&P 500 and the dividend aristocrat indexes. Abbott Laboratories has increased dividends for 38 years in a row. Most recently Abbott raised its quarterly dividend payment by 10% to $0.44/share. Dividend author Dave Van Knapp has included the company in his most recent book "The Top 40 Dividend Stocks for 2010".

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Donald Marron submits:

It figures that CBO would release its much-awaited score just as I was boarding a plane to go to a conference. So apologies for being slow to the party.

The headlines are reporting that CBO scored the health reform effort as costing $940 billion over the next ten years. Readers of this blog know that isn’t correct. The $940 billion figure refers only to the coverage expansions in the legislative package. There are also many other health reform initiatives–e.g., filling the “doughnut hole” in Medicare’s prescription drug benefit and increasing funding for community health centers and prevention efforts–in the legislation. Add it all up and the ten-year cost of health reform is about $1,072 billion.

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James Altucher submits:

All the stars are starting to be aligned for a smallcap stock, Star Scientfiic (CIGX). I’m a shareholder and have been buying more in this runup. In order for me to buy a smallcap stock, a lot of factors have to come into play. Star Scientific makes products to help people overcome their smoking habits. They are about to start selling a candy-like product called CigRx, where they’ve isolated the chemicals they think are the real reason people smoke cigarettes. The idea is if you take their candy, you won’t need the nicotein-based cigarettes. However, as can be seen below, there are other reasons why it might be interesting to eat this CigRx candy and these other reasons might account for the recent runup in the stock and why it could be going much higher, as high as a $5-10 range.

1) Massive insider buying. After the stock had already run up more than 80% from 60 cents to $1.14 the CEO bought (at $1.14) 2.3mm shares for $2.7mm.

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Zacks.com submits:

Mylan Inc. (MYL) has entered into an agreement with Takeda Pharmaceutical for two type II diabetes drugs – Actoplus Met and Actos, which recorded 2009 sales of $459 million and $3.4 billion, respectively.

Following the agreement, Mylan will be able to launch the generic versions of Actoplus Met on Dec 14, 2012 and Actos on Aug 17, 2012 or earlier under certain circumstances. The company expects to be eligible for 180 days of marketing exclusivity for both the drugs on approval.

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Zacks.com submits:

Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (ISIS) and Genzyme Corp. (GENZ) recently announced the publication of phase III data on mipomersen in The Lancet. The data was published from a study that was conducted in patients with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (hoFH).

Results, which were presented at the annual American Heart Association meeting in November 2009, showed that mipomersen met its primary endpoint. The candidate achieved a 25% reduction in low-density lipoprotein – cholesterol (LDL-C) in an intent-to-treat analysis.

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