April 15, 2005 -- On Friday, there was a huge divergence between biotech and the general market to the benefit of biotech this time. Discouraged by IBM’s poor showing, broad market averages lost almost 2% of their value. Buoyed by Genentech’s good news, biotech rose that much and more. The Centient Biotech 200 was up 2.42%, adding on 75 points to end at 3180.33. Meanwhile, the NYSE composite lost 1.49%, and Nasdaq was lower by 1.98%. The success of Avastin against breast cancer sent Genentech 18% higher, and it took Protein Design Labs up 8%, as PDL gets a royalty from the drug, Lilly rose 5% because it gets to keep its valuable Zyprexa patent, pre-clinical results against inflammation sent Hollis-Eden higher, while Roche will decline to further fund some of the compounds it partners with Memory Pharma, the HIV vaccine from GenVec did well in Phase I tests, and a treatment for rosacea from CollaGenex produced positive results in Phase II trials. More details...
