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 . …

Theravance Biopharma (TBPH) and Mylan N.V. (MYL) announced positive results from a 12-month Phase 3 safety study of revefenacin (TD-4208). The drug is an investigational long-acting muscarinic antagonist (LAMA) - a proposed once-daily, NEBULIZED bronchodilator for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The study demonstrated that revefenacin was generally well-tolerated, and no new safety issues were identified. Rates of adverse events (AEs) and serious adverse events …

Yesterday, Wednesday July 19, Vertex’s (VRTX) stock added over 20% to its value, recording a new all time high. Why? On Tuesday the firm announced a better than technical analysts’ and its own expectations’ results in three trials testing its cystic fibrosis (CF) drugs VX-152, VX-440 and VX-659 combined with two the its cystic fibrosis drugs. The positive data came from Phase 1 and Phase …

IMPROVING ON CAR IMMUNOTHERAPY APPROACH  When we stated that chimeric antigen receptor CAR immunotherapy process was created to remain and improve, we aimed at demonstrating our conviction that the CAR approach will eventually be improved and become the gold standard for the treatment of many cancers. We observed that many research and medical institutions are using all advanced information, state-of-the-art techniques and technologies in order …

A BIG YES for Novartis CAR-T product has come from the  Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee. The committee recommended FDA approval for Novartis product CTL019 for pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The Vote: The panel voted 10-0 in favor of approval. Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, (CAR-T- Cell therapy) is an immunotherapy that enables the immune system T cells to seek, reach and attack cancer …

Arena (ARNA) announced positive Phase 2 clinical trial results for its drug ralinepag1 for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). In the 61-patient study, the primary efficacy analysis demonstrated a statistically significant absolute change from baseline in pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) compared to placebo. Ralinepag also demonstrated numerical improvement in 6-minute walk distance (6MWD). Additionally, adverse events observed in the study were consistent with other prostacyclin treatments for …

FROM ARRAY Array’s Drug Binimetinib in Combination Therapy with Merck’s Drug Keytruda for METASTATIC FOR COLORECTAL CANCER   On May 8, 2017, Array BioPharma and Merck announced entering into a clinical trial collaboration to investigate the safety and efficacy of Array's MEK inhibitor, binimetinib, with Merck's anti-PD-1 therapy, Keytruda® (pembrolizumab), in metastatic colorectal cancer patients with microsatellite stable tumors (MSS CRC). The decision on this …

As we wrote yesterday, immunotherapy checkpoint inhibitors represent a great advancement and big changes in the management of cancer. It is pertinent, though, to keep in mind that these immuno-oncology products will not be successful with all cancers. Immune checkpoint inhibitors Keytruda (Merck) and Obdivo, Bristol-Myers Squibb and others are already approved around the world for several cancers. We also know that these immunotherapy products …

Merck’s (MRK) anti-PD-1 drug Keytruda® (pembrolizumab) is approved for many, many cancers. Yet, it is fair to say that this checkpoint inhibitor drug will not be effective in all cancers. This is especially true now that yesterday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has placed a clinical hold on KEYNOTE-183, KEYNOTE-185 and KEYNOTE-023, three combination studies of Keytruda® with Celgene’s products Pomalyst Pomalidomide and …

Additional Combination Treatment with Vectibix  for Metastatic Colorectal Cancer (mCRC) The Old Drug: VECTIBIX                   The Company: AMGEN Colon cancer is easy to cure when discovered early. Missing the diagnosis of early colon cancer could result in cancer growth, direct spread, distal metastasis and death. In spite of the tremendous improvement of treatments, advanced colon cancer is still …