Alnylam Pharmaecuticals and Ascletis form an agreement

For some amusement, please check out this website link: http://adf.ly/AltA4

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (ALNY) and RNAi technology

As I have said in a previous posting, most large biopharmaceutical companies have been focusing on humanizing antibodies.  It is good to find that there are some companies that are looking at RNAi. Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (ALNY) is focusing more on  RNAi and lipid nanoparticles. Their technology recently been licensed to Ascletis Pharmaceuticals, a Chinese/American company where the two companies have formed a strategic collaboration to develop ALN-VSP, an RNAi therapeutic for treatment of liver cancer.

On July 12^th, Ascletis announced the formation of an agreement between Alnylam and a Ascletis to develop ALN-VSP, an RNAi Therapeutic for the Treatment of Liver Cancers (http://www.ascletis.com/N07122012.html )

So what do I think of Alnylam, this is an exciting company that has the potential to treat a lot of different diseases and syndromes. It is based in Cambridge MA, which is one of the nuclei of pharmaceutical companies in the US. Using nanoparticles made of lipids provides a way to transfer the interfering RNAs (RNAi) into the cell without triggering the immune system response is the way to go. Avoiding the use of viruses will help it be accepted by the public.

The use of RNAi’s clearly demonstrates that this company is following the most recent literature and an understanding that epigenetic regulation of the cell is an important aspect to understand for treatment of cancers and disease. Their focus on the liver for their drug is understandable, since the liver has a high capacity for taking in lipid based particles into the cell, and the liver has a higher degree of cellular division than most tissues.

The one aspect of this company that makes me cautious to recommend it fully, is that it is not hiring scientists in the US. I agree that collaboration is good, and China has a plethora of people and scientists to collaborate with, but that Alnylam is not hiring and supporting scientists in the US makes me hesitate about fully endorsing this company.

What about the stock itself?  S and P gave it 4 stars. Reuter’s gives it 7/10 in neutral toward the positive and Second Opinion upgraded it about 34 days ago closer to “Improving”. It has had a positive run in the last month; it seems to have a resistance at 13.00. If you wait for a pull back, I think it’s a good bargain. Or if you are going to hold it for long, I recommend this stock. (my 2cents, no I don’t own the stock)

Some extra information below:

From scottrade:

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Alnylam) is a biopharmaceutical company developing therapeutics based on ribonucleic acid interface (RNAi). Its Alnylam 5x15, is focused on the development and commercialization of novel RNAi therapeutics for the treatment of genetically defined diseases. Its core programs in clinical or pre-clinical development are: ALN-TTR for the treatment of transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis (ATTR); ALN-APC for the treatment of hemophilia; ALN-PCS for the treatment of severe hypercholesterolemia; ALN-HPN for the treatment of refractory anemia, and ALN-TMP for the treatment of hemoglobinopathies, including beta-thalassemia and sickle cell anemia. The Company has three partner-based programs in clinical or pre-clinical development, including ALN-RSV01 for the treatment of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), infection, ALN-VSP for the treatment of liver cancers and ALN-HTT for the treatment of Huntington's disease (HD).

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals in the last 3 months, courtesy of Scottrade 

Acadia Pharmaceuticals stock and pipeline

ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc (ACAD)

This quiet little stock has been slowly increasing since June. The stock has outperformed the Dow and S&P 500 during trading in June.

So what does Acadia do for a business? Acadia has several preclinical and clinical trials going to treat Alzheimer’s disease psychosis. The drug pimavanserin is an inverse agonist on the serotonin receptor subtype 5-HT_2a.  An inverse agonist binds to the receptor as an agonist, but induces the opposite response.  The level of activity of the receptor needs to decrease basal levels of the receptor when it binds.  Recently preclinical studies of pimavanserin are being developed for Parkinson’s disease psychosis and is said to be already in Phase III trial for Parkinson’s disease psychosis (Dow Jones News) and may also have therapeutic benefits in treatment of Alzheimer’s disease psychosis (ADP) as seen in a rodent model of Alzheimer’s disease (Businesswire). Interesting Wikipedia takes a more negative view on the efficacy of pimavanserin on ADP.

So all that being said, what does this mean for the stock? Well it has been upgraded 10 days ago by Reuters to neutral and Second opinion upgraded it 7 days ago to improving.  The below graph provides you some insight into the last 3 months.

My 2 cents? Well, this is a tricky stock, since it seems that it’s  stock performance is based on only one drug. My question is what other drugs are in the pipeline and how far are they along? Well if you go to their website, http://www.acadia-pharm.com/pipeline/ you can see that by far pimavanserin has the lead over other companies such as Allergan. Acadia is also working on some preclinical studies for ERb and Nurr-1.

Unfortunately they do not define ERb and Nurr-1 on their website, but presumably  ERb is estrogen receptor beta and Nurr-1 is actually NURR1, which is a nuclear receptor involved in intracellular signaling with complex of proteins called CoREST  which assembles chromatin- modifying enzymes.  It is also modified by sumoylation and works with glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3) to function. GSK3 is also involved in canonical Wnt signaling which has been moved to the forefront in neurobiology these days.

I think it is too soon to know whether they are on to something or not, but NURR1 has been associated with dopaminergic dysfunction in Parkingson’s disease, schizophrenia, manic depression, and mis-regulation of NURR1 is associated with rheumatoid arthritis. There are a lot of question to be answered on how all this happens, but it will be interesting to see if the scientists at ACADIA can figure it out!

I think if you want to speculate, it might be worth the purchase and the ride. What do you think?

-JR

(PS.. I don’t own the stock, but I’m thinking about it

PSS… all statements are my own opinions based on the research I did on the stock. You can take or leave my opinions for what they are worth…)

PSSS (last one, for the night) Please check out http://www.wondersofkindle.com 

and/or go through http://amazingwonders-of-kindle.blogspot.com/ for daily free e-books for kindle

Images from Scottrade (thanks Scottrade!)

Array Pharmaceuticals and NSLC

Non small lung cancer (NSLC) is a devastating disease, and usually by the time it is diagnosed its almost too late to treat. My mom died of NSLC. She went very quickly , and the cancer cells took over her body. If we could find an effective treatment for this terrible disease, many people would not suffer as my mom did.

Array BioPharma (ARRY) provided some new data on treatment of KRAS Mutant advanced NSCLC patients. Many people in the US with NSCLC have the KRAS mutant In a double blind, randomized phase 2 study conducted by AstraZeneca examined the efficacy of selumetinib (AZD6244/ARRY886) with docetaxel in patients with the KRAS mutant had progressive free at least 6 months and improved overall survival.

From http://www.datamonitor.com/ compliments of scottrade. So what about the stock? It is not doing any remarkable climbing, but it is increasing slowly. I would recommend this as a long term investment. Just my 2 cents!

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Amgen Pharmaceuticals acquisitions

Amgen Pharmaceuticals (AMGN)

Amgen is a biotechnology medicines company. It has acquired a Turkish company  Mustafa Nevzat  (MN) Pharmaceuticals through a purchase of 95.4% of the stock in the company. MN  is a leading supplier of pharmaceuticals to the hospital sector and a majorsupplier of injectable medicines in Turkey. MN is a fast growing company in the double digits in the last 5 years. This will allow Amgen to spread its influence around the world, but not necessarily add new medicines to the market. (From http://www.amgen.com/media/media_pr_detail.jsp?releaseID=1686962)

Stock of Amgen has been slowly climbing, but it bouncing off the Bollinger bands, which may indicate that Amgen has hit a resistance;  only time will tell if it keeps going up or whether it flat lines.

Based on what I have read, it seems to be that Amgen is more focused on acquisition for growth and not developing new medicines and drugs.  I hope I am wrong, because I think that a company that stops producing new medicines will become stagnant. What do you think?

JR-
Please check out http://www.wondersofkindle.com too... Thanks!

Other sources:

 From the NY Times website, “ Amgen Inc. (Amgen) is a biotechnology medicines company. The Company discovers, develops, manufactures and markets medicines for illnesses. It focuses solely on human therapeutics and concentrates on medicines based on cellular and molecular biology. Its products are Neulasta (pegfilgrastim), a pegylated protein, based on the Filgrastim molecule, and NEUPOGEN (Filgrastim), a recombinant-methionyl human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), both of which stimulate the production of neutrophils (a type of white blood cell that helps the body fight infection); Enbrel (etanercept), an inhibitor of tumor necrosis factor (TNF), a substance, which plays a role in the body's response to inflammatory diseases, and Aranesp (darbepoetin alfa) and EPOGEN (epoetin alfa), erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs). On April 7, 2011, it acquired Laboratorio Quimico Farmaceutico Bergamo Ltda (Bergamo). In June 2012, the Company acquired more than 99% of Mustafa Nevzat Pharmaceuticals.”

Humanized antibodies and Queen's patents

PDL BioPharma, Inc (PDLI) and Humanized Antibodies

 In industry (Pharma and biotech), humanized antibodies seems to be the direction many companies are taken. What is a humanized antibody? Well, it is usually a monoclonal antibody made in a non-human. The peptide sequence of the antibody has been modified to be more “human-like”, so that when you use it for treatment in cancer for example, it will not trigger your own immune system  to attack.  This is big, because this means you can create a lot of this antibody in a mouse or a larger animal for that matter, at a lower cost and it is more likely to work in humans. This little company PDL Biopharma was a head of the group in that it has already licensed and is receiving royalties of their product.
I don’t know what they are going to do in the long run, but right now they are sitting pretty collecting royalties! The most recent one I saw in the news is from Reuters “PDL Biopharma Inc to receive royalties on sales of Genetech’s Pertzumab (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/PDLI.O/key-developments/article/2559431 ).

Second Opinion Weekly reported it upgraded as of 8 days ago to “Long” and “Improving”. Thomson Reuters Stockreport gives it a positive rating of 9 out of a scale of 1-10.  Interesting it even has a dividend associated with it J

PDL BioPharma, Inc. (PDL) is a biotech company. PDL is engaged in the management of antibody humanization patents and royalty assets, which consist of its Queen et al. patents and license agreements with various biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. The Company receives royalties based on sales of humanized antibody products marketed and may also receive royalty payments on additional humanized antibody products launched before final expiry in December 2014. It has entered into licensing agreements with numerous entities that are independently developing or have developed humanized antibodies under which it has licensed certain rights under its Queen et al. patents to make, use, sell, offer for sale and import humanized antibodies.  (Compliments of Scottrade)

-JR

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BioMarin Pharmaceuticals volume is increasing?

BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc (BMRN)

 Biomarin has a 4 star rating in the S&P, and there are conflicting reports by the analysis on whether they want to upgrade or downgrade it.  The Thomson Reuter’s report downgraded Biomarin Pharmaceuticals 9 days ago, while Second Opinion Weekly Report upgrade it from “Avoid” to “Neutral”. Interesting, the stock trade volume has increased in the last few days, just a few weeks before the new earnings report. So, unless the people buying the stock have insight into BioMartin, which we know does happen, many people may be “guessing” on the outcome to this coming Earnings. Based on what I have read, they have alot of interesting drugs in their pipeline, and have been hiring several new scientists (albeit not me though :( ) I think there is a good chance that the earnings will improve over last quarter. Does anyone want to discuss this?

So what is Biomartin Pharmaceutical company about?  BioMarin develops and commercializes pharmaceuticals for serious diseases and medical conditions. (Scottrade being vague, actually the company focuses alot on the regulation and synthesis of sugars that attached to proteins, aka glycosylation).  As of December 31, 2011, its product portfolio includes four approved products and multiple investigational product candidates. Approved products include Naglazyme (galsulfase), Kuvan (sapropterin dihydrochloride), Aldurazyme (laronidase) and Firdapse (amifampridine phosphate). As of December 31, 2011, BioMarin conducted clinical trials on a number of investigational product candidates for the treatment of various diseases, including GALNS, an enzyme replacement therapy for the treatment of Mucopolysaccharidosis Type IV or Morquio Syndrome Type A (MPS IV A); PEG-PAL, an enzyme substitution therapy for the treatment of phenylketonuria (PKU); BMN-701, an enzyme replacement therapy for Pompe disease; BMN-673, an orally available poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase, or PARP inhibitor for the treatment of patients with certain cancers, and BMN-111 CNP for Achondroplasia (Information complements of Scottrade and Biomartin’s website http://www.bmrn.com/pipeline/index.php ).

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Aging and red wine

Aging

A new molecule enters the field and it is called sirtuins. These proteins are involved in different types of cellular processes including aging.  One of the intriguing aspects is that if you activate the protein with a drug called resveratrol, you can extend life and improve health. Of course this is all done in animal studies, but it does make you wonder whether if the secret to long healthy life is in the near future? Now for those of you who are wondering about the drug resveratrol, this is the compound that is in grape skins… Yes….  Wine  J. Resveratrol is also anti- biotic, meaning it fights fungal and bacterial infections. You can actually purchase resveratrol online. Just for the heck of it, I provide you with some links below if you were interested.  I’m not sure of the best way to ingest it is, but if you do some research of your own you can find out more.

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/341245/title/Antiaging_protein_helps_set_daily_rhythms

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Proctor and Gamble Goof

Here is a scary thought for you...

Apparently during the creation (aka processing) of Tide detergent, a carcinogen,  1,4 dioxane, is produced.  A Women’s Voices for the Earth group sent the detergent out to be tested and one of the chemicals they found is 1,4 dioxane. This is not intentionally added to the ingredients, but rather it’s a byproduct of the product when it is made. 

Now although P&G is responding to “A Women’s Voices for the Earth”, they have responded to individual people.

Besides the fact that it is there, I am guessing that almost any detergent you get in your local store has this contaminant. So the real question is what should we, as a consumer, do about it? Should the industry add an additional step in the processing to make sure this potential carcinogen is removed from the detergent before selling?  

On the stock side of things, this has the potential for causing a sell-off of P&G’s stock as consumers worry about the carcinogen AND the lack of communication  and action by P&G’s…. Let’s watch and see what happens next!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/amywestervelt/2012/04/30/procter-gamble-defends-against-claims-that-tide-detergents-contain-carcinogens/

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Cancer

Caffeine

Interesting story about how caffeine can stimulate the muscles of the elderly. Now the real question is what is it’s mode of action? In muscles of the young there is very little effect, so what do you think is happening?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120629120445.htm

Caffeine in general, stimulates the central nervous system and is used as a stimulant, and to treat headaches in combination with aspirin, for example.  It has also been suggested that caffeine alleviates the pain of a headache by altering the flow of blood through the blood vessels. Perhaps by doing this in the muscle, will have a similar response?

Caffeine is also suppose to keep you alert and reduce dementia and delay Alzheimer’s. SO keep on having  your morning Joe!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120604142615.htm

http://www.bioportfolio.com/news/article/1066584/High-Blood-Caffeine-Levels-In-Older-Adults-Linked-To-Avoidance-Of-Alzheimer.html

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*** Please support my blog by clicking and viewing the ads for a few minutes. This does not obligate you to buy, but does provide me with a few cents of income. Thanks! (poor scientist and professor)

Genetech and personalized medicine

Genetech developed a drug against a specific subset of metastatic breast cancer, called HER2-positive mBC. This drug targets the HER2 receptor and blocks it from activating downstream signals by receptor dimerization. This is an awesome accomplishment, but what is made to sound so exciting, is really just Genetech combining the drugs they already have created, and see if they improve patient outcome even more so. It’s a pretty standard process, if you target the cancer in different ways, you are more likely to destroy the cancerous tissue.  This concept has already been used to combat AIDS by giving people a cocktail of drugs.

The drug they are calling Perjeta (which you have to love these names!) is a combination of  Herceptin (which interferes with HER2, part of the EGF-superfamily) and docetaxel (which interferes with the microtubule cytoskeleton).  The name Perjecta is derived from the concept of “personalized” medicine, where they examine the cancer and see what genes and hence proteins are mutated, and target them specifically to a person. This way if a person does not have a problem with the HER2 protein and pathway, they would not be treated with this drug combination.

Their data will be submitted for presentation at an upcoming medical meeting. And Dr. Barron, chief medical officer and head of Global Product Development  is excited that there is an improvement in survival in the CLEOPATRA (Clinical Evaluation Of Pertuzumab  And TRAstuzumab) study.  There are a whole bunch of side effects which include diarrhea, hair loss, low white blood cell count with or without fever, upset stomach, fatigue, rash and peripheral neuropathy (numbness, tingling or damage to the nerves). The most common Grade 3-4 adverse reactions (rate greater than 2 percent) were low white blood cell count with or without fever, decrease in a certain type of white blood cell, diarrhea, damage to the nerves, and decrease in red blood cell count, weakness and fatigue. But if you survive cancer, I expect people are willing to accept the side effects during treatment. Although, I’m not sure I’d be too excited about damaging my nerves.

Sources: http://www.biospace.com/News/genentech-says-perjeta-combination-increased/264814

What avenues of research are going on in Big Pharma?

Recently I have been looking at pharmaceutical companies and the jobs they are posting. I have a strong background in research, and was thinking of changing career paths.

Interesting what I have discovered is that many of the large companies, such as Abbott Laboratories, Pfeizer, and Eli Lily are all focused to a large extent on research where antibodies are used as treatments for disorders and illnesses.  Now coming from an academic research angle, this surprised me. It seems to me that these larger companies are behind the scientific research that is being done these days. In academia, non-coding RNAs (miRNA siRNA, etc), are the focus. In addition to genomic and proteomic global approaches for individualizing treatments.

So, who do you think are the most innovative companies out there?

helicos biosciences continues

I've copied this information from the Businesswire, it is very exciting! With another patent litigation settled, its only a little bit of time before Helicos Biosciences stock goes up even more!

Helicos BioSciences Corporation Settles its Patent Litigation Against Pacific Biosciences, Inc.

6 days 8 hours 35 minutes ago - Businesswire

Helicos BioSciences Corporation (OTCQB: HLCS.PK) announced today that it has settled its patent infringement litigation against Pacific Biosciences, Inc. The settlement gives Pacific Biosciences freedom-to-operate from Helicos's patents within a limited field of use covering Pacific Biosciences' current products only. In addition to paying an undisclosed financial settlement, Pacific Biosciences agreed to refrain from challenging the validity, enforceability, or patentability of any of Helicos's patents, which includes halting its efforts in the inter partes reexamination of the patents in suit with the USPTO.

Stay tune for more as I continue to follow helicos biosciences!

Helicos Biosciences Corp a company to watch

Helicos Biosciences Corp

An interesting company.
Here is a summary of the company:

Helicos BioSciences Corporation (Helicos) is a life sciences company focused on genetic analysis technologies. Helicos has developed a technology to enable the analysis of genetic material by directly sequencing single molecules of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or ribonucleic acid (RNA). The platform consists of an instrument, called the HeliScope Single Molecule Sequencer, an image analysis computer tower called the HeliScope Analysis Engine, associated reagents, which are chemicals used in the sequencing process, and disposable supplies. The Company's True Single Molecule Sequencing (tSMS) technology enables the simultaneous sequencing of large numbers of strands of single DNA or RNA molecules. Helicos has developed a technology to perform targeted sequencing using its newly developed DirectGene Sequencing capability. (compliments of Scottrade).

I think this company has some awesome potential, and the way it is fluxuating, I think it has a lot of potential for making you money. On Friday, when the market went down 140+ points, Helicos went up 30%!! From the grape vine-- its about settling some patent conflicts, 1 down, 2 to go!

8-25-09

Today- 8-25-09... was a good day..

Have you bought some stock that relates to the housing business?

Fannie-Mae?!j Wow, think how much you would have made if you had purchased it at the beginning of Aug?!

What about PMI group? Insurance and property.. A side group off of fannie-mae.... its creeping up about 5% per day!

OK.. something to think about Fanny Mae. Its definitely possible to make money on Fanny Mae, if you watch the news and the stock itself.

It may be time to buy again and ride it up again. what do you think?

Biotechnology Stocks...

With these troubling times, we need to think outside the box. Anyone can make $ in the stockmarket, its not rocket science, BUT you do need an iron stomach.

A few stocks that are worth watching:
ACTC (Advanced Cell Technology)

- they are all about commercializing adult and embryonic stem cells for creating treatments for

in the field of regenerative medicine. They are working on developing and bringing to market treatments for chronic degenerative diseases and in regenerative repair of acute disease, such as trauma, myocardial infarction and burns.

-recently had an increase in price, but has fallen back. Now seems to be the time to buy more...

Another stock that has great possibilities is INO, Inovio Biomedical Corporation. Its a San Diego-based biomedical company focused on the development of vaccines to prevent or treat cancers and chronic infectious diseases. IIt uses electroporation (using electricity) to deliver DNA to the cells. They have focused on vaccines and also have created new technologies for electroporation.

They have several subsidaries: Genetronics, Inc., Inovio AS and Inovio Asia Pte. Ltd and this past June they completed a erger with VGX Pharmaceuticals.

-they too had an increase in price because of their success in vaccines... This one seems to be a company to hold for the long term.

Ever wonder about the stock market? Do you get those infamous e-mails that tell you a certain stock is getting ready to take off? does it really work?.. what do you think?