Prohost Letter #411 SOME STOCK RALLYING NEWS - Under normal conditions, some good news should rally the stocks of the firms that the news belong to them. During the past six months, Amgen (AMGN) announced a series of good news that seem to have fallen on deaf ears. Yesterday Amgen announced some positive results from three approved and one experimental products – all the news …

Prohost Letter #410 JUNE PDUFA DAYS This month, the FDA will decide on the approvals of drugs belonging to companies that Prohost has picked for investment. Usually, granting approvals rallies the stocks of the drugs’ developing firms. Sending Complete Response Letters for demands that might delay approvals would cut a substantial percentage of the stocks’ values, while rejections would cause the stocks to falter. Let’s …

Array Biopharma (ARRY) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) announced a clinical research collaboration to investigate the safety, tolerability and efficacy of Array’s investigational MEK inhibitor, binimetinib in combination with BMY’s checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy drug Opdivo (nivolumab) and Opdivo Plus Yervoy (ipilimumab). The combinations are for the  potential treatment for metastatic colorectal cancer in patients with microsatellite stable tumors. According to Ron Squarer, CEO Array BioPharma the …

Positive results were announced from Array’s (ARRY) Part 2 of the Phase 3 COLUMBUS study evaluating the firm’s MEK inhibitor drug binimetinib, and its BRAF inhibitor drug encorafenibin in patients with BRAF-mutant advanced, unresectable or metastatic melanoma. The part 2 of the Phase 3, which intended to compare progression free survival (PFS) in patients treated with binimetinib plus encorafenib (COMBO300) to patients treated with encorafenib …

MERCK Merck (MRK) has beaten analysts’ expectations generating $9.4 billion for revenues in the first quarter of 2017. Its GAAP EPS was $0.56 for the first quarter of 2017 and the Non-GAAP EPS $0.88 for the first quarter of 2017. The outperformance occurred in spite of the declining sales of some aging drugs, which is a normal recurrent phenomenon especially with the increase in break-through …

AMGEN Amgen’s (AMGN) cholesterol lowering drug Repatha is the only drug that has demonstrated protection against heart attack and stroke in high risk patients. Prior to the FOURIER trial, which confirmed the effect of Repatha in lowering cardiovascular events, including heart attack and stroke, other clinical trial data led to the FDA approval of Repatha limited to the following indications: 1) adjunct to diet and …

Prohost Letter #405 Synthetic Biology (3) We have already decided upon becoming shareholders the day synthetic biology firm called Synthetic Genomics turns public. We reiterate that firms specialized in synthetic biology are numerous private and publicly traded. Some are promising, others are walking in place and a few have plummeted. With the general underperformance of synthetic biology stocks, many shareholders abandoned ship. Investors felt that …

Prohost Letter #404 Part 2 Synthetic Biology (2) A Brief History DNA is the software of life. This is how Synthetic Genomics firm, which we believe is now is the leading biotech firm for applied synthetic biology. Synthetic Genomics is still a private firm in spite of that thousands of investors are impatiently waiting for it to turn public and it will. So stay tuned. …

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 …

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 …

Prohost Biotech On   ARRAY PHARMACEUTICALS Under the title “Halozyme has Good News and Array Too”, we wrote the following about Array On Nov. 5, 2015. Array’s (ARRY) internal, broad based drug discovery and research technological capabilities is behind the creation of its small molecule therapeutics. Array’s know-how and expertise led it to build a library of therapeutics for advanced cancers and other diseases. Array’s library’s therapeutic molecules are expected …

At the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2016 in Rome, Italy, Array Biopharma (ARRY) presented good results from a Phase 2 study of its drug ARRY-797 - an oral, selective p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase inhibitor for patients with a rare degenerative cardiovascular disease. The disease, is known as lamin A/C-related dilated cardiomyopathy (LMNA-related DCM) and is caused by mutations in the LMNA gene and is …

We do expect some selling of Array today after AstraZeneca’s announced negative results from Phase 3 SELECT-1 trial of the MEK inhibitor, selumetinib, in combination with docetaxel chemotherapy as 2nd-line treatment for KRAS mutation-positive (KRASm) locally-advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The results did not meet the trial’s primary endpoint of progression-free survival (PFS), and did not demonstrate overall survival (OS). These results, …

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 …

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 …

Yes. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Array Pharmaceuticals (ARRY) announced an immuno-oncology collaboration with potential applicability in a wide range of cancer indications. Who are these people, meaning Danna-Faber Cancer institute? Founded in 1947, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts has been providing cancer patients, including adults and children, with the best treatment available today, while developing tomorrow’s cures through cutting-edge research. The Institute is one of the world’s leading …

When you do your due diligence, you do not lose your faith in what you believed in giving up to the hype that’s sprayed around you. We were happy today to hear Array BioPharma (ARRY) report that results from the Phase 3 NEMO clinical trial of binimetinib in patients with advanced NRAS-mutant melanoma. The trial met its primary endpoints. We are happy, but not surprised, …

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 …