April 20, 2005 Late in the session, the general market decided to continue the precipitous slide of last week. At the time, biotech was trying to rally into positive territory, but the pressure was too great and it fell along with stocks in general. Biotech did well to keep its loss small. The Centient Biotech 200 slipped 16 points or .51%, to 3155. Broader market indexes lost twice as much. The NYSE Composite was off 1.32% and Nasdaq was .96% lower. Corgentech announced a plan that will cut staff and programs to conserve cash, a heart drug from Johnson & Johnson came under attack by the JAMA for causing deaths, Novartis will add a warning to its epilepsy drug, Ariad won fast-track status for a cancer drug, Coley Pharma filed for an IPO, Gilead beat the street and traded higher, and Wyeth beat the street and traded lower. More details...
