The Motley Fool: Can Anything Derail Salix Pharmaceuticals?

I promise that I don't have a contract that specifies a minimum number of Salix Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SLXP  ) articles, but sometimes the news flow just seems to run that way. After a vague announcement of positive phase 3 data on Xifaxan in IBS-D on July 1 and the announcement of a tax inversion M&A transaction with Cosmo Tech on July 9, management has now announced a successful appeal to the FDA and the approval of sub-q Relistor for opioid-induced constipation (or OIC) in patients with chronic pain unrelated to cancer.

Read the full article here:
Can Anything Derail Salix Pharmaceuticals?

Seeking Alpha: Should Basilea Pharmaceutica Be Trading At Twice This Price?

The biotech sector has fallen on hard times, with momentum investors fleeing the space and those who remain taking a much more careful look at just how much they are willing to pay for these speculative stocks. Caught up in the mix is the very under-covered Basilea Pharmaceutica (OTC:BPMUF), a small-cap Swiss biotech focused on antibiotics, antifugals, and oncology drugs. While the company does not yet have a drug approved in the U.S., key filings are close at hand for multiple drugs.

Investors should note that Basilea's U.S. ADRs are very illiquid. With less than 10 million shares outstanding, an average volume of about 110,000, and three analysts covering the company it is not as though the Swiss-listed shares (SIX:BSLN) are rolling in ample liquidity either. This makes an already risky situation a little more challenging for U.S. investors.


Follow this link for more:
Should Basilea Pharmaceutica Be Trading At Twice This Price?

Seeking Alpha: Investors Can Still Benefit From Street's Doubts About Forest Labs

It's hard to remember the last time the Street was really hot on Forest Labs (FRX). Although this company has shown a pretty surprising resilience and an uncanny ability to find good licensing deals, analysts seemingly can't move past the admittedly huge ramifications of key drug Lexapro going generic. It's not as though Forest Labs has been caught flat-footed, though, and there seems to be value in Forest's pipeline than the Street can see.

Click here for more:
Investors Can Still Benefit From Street's Doubts About Forest Labs

Seeking Alpha: Trius Therapeutics - The Calm Before The Storm

Biotech investing is often an exercise in "hurry up and wait". Once clinical trials are underway, there's not much for investors to do but wait and hope for positive news like partnerships, setbacks at competitors, or new additions to the pipeline. There's a risk that shares of Trius Therapeutics (TSRX) will go to sleep ahead of pivotal data in early 2013, but biotech investors may want to take a serious look at this under-owned name.

A New Antibiotic For A Market That Needs One
Despite the much-publicized rise of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and its growing threat to public health, antibiotic development is not a major priority for most large drug companies and biotechs. Some of this is due to difficulty (drugs that are very good at killing bacteria are often quite dangerous for the human taking them), but even more may be due to limited revenue prospects - the entire branded antibiotic market in the U.S. is smaller than the market for many individual cancer drugs.

Continue to the full article here:
Trius Therapeutics: The Calm Before The Storm

Seeking Alpha: Nektar Therapeutics - Often Forgotten, But Worth A Look

A few weeks into 2012, it looks like investors are much more eager to take on some risk in their portfolios and biotechs are coming back into favor. With that in mind, it makes sense to check out some of the promising biotechs that languished a bit in 2011. Although Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NKTR) hasn't had much bad news in a while, in the world of biotech "no news" can be almost just as bad and it seems that the market has perhaps forgotten this name a bit.

Changing Course
Nektar has long been in the business of partnering with larger pharmaceutical companies and licensing its proprietary PEGylation technology. PEGylation basically introduces polyethylene glycol into a compound and alters its performance in the body - most notably by slowing the process of clearing in from the body. Companies including Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN), Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), and Merck (NYSE: MRK) have licensed this technology for major drugs like Neulasta and PEG-INTRON, but Nektar gets only relatively small royalties for this technology.

Click below for more:
Nektar Therapeutics: Often Forgotten, But Worth A Look

Seeking Alpha: Cubist Fills Its Sales Bag And Pipeline With Adolor

Stuck in a trading range for about five years, Cubist Pharmaceuticals (CBST) has had a pretty good year in 2011. The company resolved a patent dispute with Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA) on reasonably good terms, got some patent extensions that should further boost its profit potential on Cubicin, and struck marketing deals with Optimer (OPTR) and AstraZeneca (AZN) to make better use of its own sales force. But that's not all that's working in Cubist's favor recently. The company's pipeline has also come along nicely, as the Calixa deal has delivered two promising compounds, one of which is now in late-stage studies.

That said, it has not been all sweetness and light for Cubist. Investors have been troubled by this company's heavy reliance on Cubicin and the inevitable declines that are coming in operating income, to say nothing of the inefficiencies of operating a salesforce with few compounds to sell. Investors have been waiting for Cubist to do a deal or two and now management has done just that – giving the company an additional product to sell and also adding some clinical compounds outside of its core anti-infective space.

Click the link for the full story:
Cubist Fills Its Sales Bag And Pipeline With Adolor

Investopedia: XOMA Rearranges The Deck Chairs One More Time

XOMA (Nasdaq:XOMA) really is a remarkable story in many ways. Few companies have survived so long, and raised capital so many times, and done so little with it. While the company has actually approached $100 million in reported sales, and not many biotechs do even that much, the company has never had any real success in the clinic and has basically strung along successive generations of investors on hype and hope. Now that the company is changing up management yet again, investors should be asking themselves if there is really a good reason to stick by a company that has floundered around for more than 20 years to no real purpose.


A Change at the Top
XOMA announced Wednesday that it's CEO Steve Engle was bailing on the company. Engle said, "I am looking forward to applying my expertise building life science companies in the future."

Hmmm, expertise? Engle became XOMA's CEO in August of 2007. In the those four years, XOMA has gone from a market cap north of $350 million to a current market cap of just under $64 million, and the company really is not a great deal closer to having a winning product in its portfolio.


Read the complete article at the link below:
http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2011/XOMA-Rearranges-The-Deck-Chairs-One-More-Time-XOMA-REGN-PFE-ABT-ISIS-VICL-CELG0901.aspx

Investopedia: Should Investors Circle Back To Cubist?

It is biotech stocks like Cubist Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq:CBST) that keep investors coming back into a sector that is arguably more famous for spectacular failures than reliable success. While Cubist stock has not reclaimed the highs of the 2000-2001 era, the company has nevertheless ridden the success of its antibiotic Cubicin to become a near 10-bagger from the lows of late 2002. The question for investors now, though, is whether the company can find another Cubicin and keep the investor enthusiasm healthy. 

A Solid, But Not Special, Second Quarter  
Cubist reported sales growth of 5% for the second quarter, fueled by 9% growth from the company's core drug, Cubicin. Although Cubicin sales were a bit stronger than analysts were generally expecting, overall revenue was basically in line with expectations. Margin performance was likewise unspectacular in either direction - the company saw some gross margin erosion (due in part to larger sales discounts), but adjusted operating income growth tracked revenue. 


Continue by clicking the link below:
http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2011/Should-Investors-Circle-Back-To-Cubist--CBST-LLY-FRX-PFE-TEVA-OPTR-AZN0719.aspx