Coming Soon... The Week in Review #3 Gilead Acquisition - Rallying by Association - Improving on Cancer Treatments...

The answer is, indeed, Gilead (GILD) and its CAR T drug approval will be for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). This is true, as in May, the FDA has accepted for priority review Kite Pharma’s Biologics License Application (BLA) for its genetically engineered Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cell (CAR-T) product axicabtagene ciloleucel. The submission follows positive data demonstrated after a single infusion of axicabtagene ciloleucel in the …

Eli Lilly and Company (LLY) and Incyte (INCY) announced that, after discussions with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in late August, Lilly will resubmit the New Drug Application (NDA) for baricitinib before the end of January 2018. That was fast, we mean the re-submission. To remind you, the firms had submitted Baricitinib for review seeking marketing approval for rheumatoid arthritis in the U.S., the …

Earlier this month, on Aug. 24, 2017, Propeller Health announced the expansion of its 2015 collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), enabling both companies to prepare for and undertake commercial activities using the Propeller clip-on sensor and software platform for use with  ELLIPTA Inhaler. The inhaler, which is marketed by GSK, is produced by Innoviva (INVA) and approved by the FDA in other countries around the world. …

CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP) and Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center (MGHCC) have entered into a two-year research collaboration and license option agreement to develop Novel T cell therapies for cancer. As part of the collaboration, CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology will be utilized to improve upon current T cell therapies in development addressing unmet needs in both hematologic and solid tumors.  This improvement is expected to occur by combining the …

When what you predicted, preached, and wished are realized, this is good news. Today’s news is bringing all Prohost predictions into realization, Yes, Kite (KITE) is on its way to be acquired by Gilead (GILD) and yes both stocks have rallied and yes Juno (JUNO) is also rallying on the Kite’s news because both firms are pioneers in the CAR-T Immunotherapy technology and drugs. Rallied …

The Week in Review #2 The Fairest Upgrades of the Week - Some analysts gave a generous and well measured dose of fairness evaluating biotech firms’ accomplishments. Credit Swiss upgrades Portola Pharmaceuticals (PTLA) from neutral to outperform while maintaining its $70 target . . . This content is for paid subscribers. Please click here to subscribe or here to log in.

Xoma (XOMA) stock rallied surprising many but not all. We put this firm in a special table called aggressive portfolio where we put of firms with strong scientific and technological fundamentals that, for bad reasons, or trials and errors reasons have underperformed. With all its past history where past management’s sins overshadowed its science and scientists’ obvious clear capabilities, we never kicked XOMA out of …

New Discoveries in Neurodegenerative Diseases  Everyday is another day that can totally differ from the previous day with regard to increasing researchers’ capabilities of discovering new pathways of diseases and turning their new discoveries into far-reaching treatments. The tireless revolution in life sciences has uncovered treasures of knowledge that has been buried for centuries in the graves of the unknown. The wealth of knowledge being …

THE WEEK IN REVIEW Wall Street As we said in yesterday’s article posted under Today’s Highlights, stocks can plummet at any time, regardless of whether they have the best or the worst grades for their financial or accomplishments reports. Stocks can falter (yet quickly recover) for various reasons, as their prices are decided by thousands of stocks exchanging hands between sellers who need to sell …

About Our New Section On Sunday, August 20, 2017 we will post our first “The Week in Review” article. This current week has carried bad news, political hypocrisy and a catastrophic terrorist attack on the people of Spain. The week started following war threatening words between the U.S. and North Korea; between the politicians around the world and in the U.S.; and between everybody and …

AFTER MANY OF THE PROHOST PICKED STOCKS NEARED REACHING THE PROHOST NEAR-TERM TARGETS, recently, external circumstances and exaggerated delaying news, some of our rallied stocks gave back some of their gains. Two reasons were behind the decline in some precious picked stocks, which occurred one after the other in a very short period of time. The first reason for the declines came through traders’ practice …

EXELIXIS Exelixis’ (EXEL) shareholders know well how good are the firm’s announced financial results for the second quarter of 2017. They also know well how good is the update presented by the firm about the progress made towards fulfilling its commercial and clinical development milestones. Exelixis report left no reason for complaining, criticizing or downgrading the firm’s stock. As a matter of fact, the presentation …

Synopsis Most of the Prohost picked stocks gained momentum and closed higher at the end of the week. Some rallied because that’s what they were supposed to do after the quarterly financial when most biotech stocks are subjected to selloffs, including those that have clearly outperformed in real life. The most outperforming of our picked stocks in July and continue to outperform are Illumina (ILMN) …

Prohost Letter #412 Part 3 GLIOBLASTOMA - Is There Hope? Senator John McCain was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, glioblastoma – the most common and aggressive form of brain cancer. The cancer is so aggressive that most surgeries did not provide survival. This brain cancer affects around 3 people out of 100,000 in the U.S., with men more than women and whites more than other …

CELGENE Good news from Celgene (CELG) announced  that the FDA approved the firm’s targeted drug Idhifa (enasidenib) for adults with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) associated with isocitrate dehydrogenase-2 (IDH2) mutations. Good news also announced that the FDA approved the RealTime IDH2 companion assay, which pinpoints the IDH2 mutations. Richard Pazdur, MD, of the FDA Office of Hematology and Oncology Products, said in a statement. …

Prohost Letter #412 Part 2 Living Breakthroughs in The Making - Understanding the origin of diseases or the reasons for their resistance and devastation is the road towards designing the right treatments. Research published about novel approaches or new entity drugs that promise better safety efficacy, in addition to saving lives, should be of interest to investors even when the promising research is conducted by …

Amgen’s (AMGN) stock outperformed in the past 6 months for significant reasons and these reasons are still there as we observed listening to the firm’s quarterly results. The firm’s results surpassed analysts’ expectations. The stock outperformed because the firm outperformed, never letting its accomplishments emanate from the past successes, but through updating its technologies and products to where the scientific knowledge has reached. That’s the …

It took only a few months after the dosing stages of NKTR-358 in in a Phase I trial for Eli Lilly to strike a deal worth $400 million with the ascending firm Nektar (NKTR) related to the drug. Eli Lilly seemed impressed with NeKtar’s drug, which was designed to treat autoimmune and other chronic inflammatory conditions. NKTR-358 targets interleukin (IL-2) receptor complex. Nektar and Lilly …

Prohost Letter #412 Part 1 Updating Our Targets - This Letter will be of three parts. The first part (today’s  issue)aims at presenting our adjusted targets based on current news and updates related to the Prohost picks. A Case in Point - PORTOLA - For example, Portola (PTLA) has recently been granted FDA approval for its Factor 10 (FX) inhibitor anticoagulant drug Bevyxxa (betrixaban . …