It seems that the global Takeda (TKPYY) has guessed well what it should pick in order to bring the most effective targeted treatments to cancer patients allover the globe. Cancer management has unreservedly changed. What seems now to have become the best treatment choices are those that would accommodate the new wave of extremely promising immunotherapy approaches. To reach its ultimate success, immunotherapy drugs require …

ARIAD Pharmaceuticals’ (ARIA) stock jumped 75% today. The oncology firm entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited under which Takeda will acquire all of the outstanding shares in ARIAD for $24.00 per share in cash, or a total enterprise value of approximately $5.2 billion, representing a premium of approximately 75 percent over ARIAD’s closing price on January 6, 2017. Under …

President Elect Trump was quoted in a Time person of the year as saying “I am going to bring down drug prices.” The President Elect did not say he is going to bring down the drug producing and developing firms. Mr. Trump did not say he will bring down medical research, which is mostly conducted by the biotech and pharmaceutical firms. He did not say …

Prohost Letter #402 Antisense Proof of Concept and Feasibility EYE ON INVIVA (INVA) Sales of The Ellipta Inhalers Started to Pick up AND ON THERAVANCE BIOPHARMA (TBPH) See Below AND WE WILL NOT LOSE FOCUS ON ARIAD (ARIA), EXELIXIS (EXEL), ARRAY (ARRY), PORTOLA (PTLA), NEKTAR (NKTR), THERAVANCE BIOPHARMA (TBPH), INVIVA (INVA), MERCK (MRK) AND SEE THE TABLES IONIS (IONS) The . . . This content is for paid …

Ariad Pharmaceuticals (ARIA): Good news from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) affirmed that the agency accepted for review Ariad’s New Drug Application (NDA) for its investigational oral anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor, brigatinib for patients with metastatic ALK-positive (ALK+) non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have progressed after being treated with crizotinib. The NDA submission includes clinical data from its Phase 1/2 and …

Prohost Letter #400 NEAR-­TERM INVESTING The Prohost Letter #399 Part 3 has Promised to Des

Shares of Ariad Pharmaceuticals declined following Senator Bernie Sanders’ criticism of the high price of the firm’s drug Iclusig (ponatinib) on Twitter. Ariad said, “our pricing reflects our significant investment in R&D, our commitment to the very small, ultra orphan cancer patient populations that we serve and the associated risk with research and development.” The Senator meant well we know. However, it looks as if …

ARIAD Pharmaceuticals (ARIA) announced the initiation of a New Drug Application (NDA) submission for brigatinib, the firm’s investigational anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor to the FDA. Earlier than expected, ARIAD is seeking U.S. marketing approval of brigatinib for patients with ALK+ non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who are resistant to crizotinib, which has received Breakthrough Therapy designation from the FDA for for this NSCLC condition …

CANCER Everyday something new is discovered that explains cancer behavior, including proliferation, response to treatment, resistance to treatment, metastasis, recurrence, etc. Today we have several news, including one that might have cleared a puzzle regarding a continuous growth of colon cancer after oncologists block a well known signaling molecule recognized as playing a major role in making, not breaking the cancer. We also have news …

Underestimating the Value of Drugs that Disrupt the DNA Repair Mechanisms in Cancer Cells. AstraZeneca’s (AZN) Chief Executive Pascal Soriot said that while DNA damage response was under-recognized by investors, oncologists were already “very excited” by its potential of the drugs targeting DNA repair mechanisms inside cancer cells. According to AstraZeneca, drugs that disrupt the DNA repair mechanisms inside cancer cells are showing tangible promise for …

By June, which is next month, Incyte (INCY) will be the owner of the European operations of Ariad (ARIA). That’s what both firms have announced yesterday. Among other details, the firms decided on signing a licensing agreement for exclusive development and commercialization rights to Ariad’s Iclusig (ponatinib) in the European Union and 22 other countries, including Switzerland, Norway, Turkey, Israel and Russia. Iclusig is approved …

Prohost Letter #394 Part 2 PART 2 - Part 1 of the Prohost letter issue #394 posted on March 31,2016 ended with the review of Ariad Pharmaceuticals (ARIA), one of the biotech firms that have at least one marketed product that we believe have the chance to boost their revenues in the near-future. In this part 2 of the same Prohost Letter, we add other firms …

Prohost Letter #393 IMMUNOTHERAPY - PROHOST PORTFOLIO - NEW PICKS? - A Brief Reminder of the CAR T –TCR Immunotherapy Approaches In this issue we continue our journey inside the territory of cancer immunotherapy. We remind that in the Prohost Letter issue #391, we dealt with the immunotherapy based on genetically engineered T Cells, enabling them to seek out, attack and neutralize cancer cells. The immune system’s T …

Prohost Letter #384 The Assassination of the Biotech Sector The Market (Part 2) On Friday September 18, 2015, the biotechnology sector occupied the news headlines for two different reasons. The first was the sudden unexplicable and unexpected plummeting of the biotech sector. The stocks were flying sky high until modday and suddenly, all the biotech stocks, without exception, took a dive. The second reason was the triumph of …

Prohost Letter #383 The Market - Recent tails about the market and the biotech sector are true thrillers. By true we mean no-fiction. The accounts lack common sense. Professionals' interpretations of the stocks' and of the market's moves are bizarre and misleading. General investors complain only when the stocks' volatility gets out of hand, yet, do not object to the hype, or interferes against the baseless …

Prohost Letter #378 Part 2 2015 ASCO ANNUAL MEETING What a Big Revolution in Oncology! The ASCO meeting projected the huge advancement in the understanding, diagnosing and treating cancer. What looked as if a sudden explosion has brought in the big change, the change was, in fact a slow, deep-rooted evolution, built up over a long period of trial and error with the failures constituting …

Prohost Letter #378 Part 1 Views and Visions TOP-TIER BIOTECHNOLOGY COMPANIES GILEAD We wrote a lot about Gilead (GILD), doing our best to protect investors against negative gossip that filled the media and aimed at misleading and insulting investors’ intelligence. We never lowered our target based on the perpetrated, fabricated stories, which made many investors lose confidence in Gilead’s strategy and sell their stocks, thus, …

Prohost Letter #377 PICKING BIOTECH FIRMS Before Investing in Them Raising the bar in designating small drug developing firms as biotechnology firms has occurred several times since 2011. In that year, many technologies were tremendously enhanced, which enabled them to realize superior goals, i.e., produce safer and more effective breakthrough drugs for chronic debilitating and life-threatening diseases. Prohost Portfolios picks, which have outperformed other industries’ …