Why Loxo Oncology and Sage Therapeutics Have Occupied Today's Headline News LOXO Oncology Eli Lilly (LILY) announced its intention to acquire Loxo Oncology (LOXO) for around $8 billion in cash.  The offer translates to around $235 a share, representing a premium of 69%. Loxo Oncology is developing a pipeline of targeted medicines focused on cancers that can be detected by genomic testing. We remind that last week Bristol-Myers …

As we expected in our posting yesterday under Today’s Highlights, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Loxo Oncology’s (LOXO) Vitrakvi® (larotrectinib), the first oral TRK inhibitor for adult and pediatric patients with solid tumors having a neurotrophic receptor tyrosine kinase (NTRK) gene fusion. The approval is for the cancers that have no known acquired resistance mutation, are metastatic or where surgical resection is likely to result …

We hope you all took advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday to rest and relax. We did. In Today’s NEWS RegenxBio Offers Rocket Pharmaceuticals exclusive, worldwide, rights to adenoviral vector NAV AAV9 for the development of treatments for Danon Disease RegenxBio (RGNX) announced that it awarded an exclusive, worldwide, license agreement to Rocket Pharmaceuticals (RCKT) so it can develop gene therapy for Danon disease. The exclusive license …

When we reiterated that Illumina (ILMN) is the engine of the biotechnology evolution we meant it. We have to add, though, that the evolution made possible by Illumina’s sequencers and next-generation sequencing (NGS) engine is tremendously improving research and medical practice.  Regarding medical practice, the most recent news announced a global strategic partnership between Illumina and Loxo Oncology (LOXO) to co-develop and commercialize a multi-gene panel for broad tumor …

Prohost Letter #416 Part 1 The Year In Review - 2017 Unheard of Programs - AN AWESOME YEAR for the biotech sector regarding its accomplishments. Many of the accomplished programs were unheard of regarding the degree of their positive impact on medical practice. Unfortunately, many of these accomplishments, which included the making of new discoveries, the creation of novel advanced technologies and the design of …

Prohost Letter #415 New Promising Technologies PROTAC - A Technology That Offers a Superior Class of Drugs PROTAC is an approach that created a new class of drugs described as superior and far less toxic than targeted drugs known to block disease-­causing proteins. The technology belongs to a private Company called Arvinas . . . This content is for paid subscribers. Please click here to subscribe …

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 …

As we wrote in Prohost Letter #409, a transformation in this year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting (ASCO) is further elaborating on Checkpoint inhibition and chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) approaches’ limitations. Both are attempts towards making Immunotherapy for cancer a successful treatment. Checkpoint inhibitors have reached the market at the hands of Merck, Bristo-Myers Squibb and Roche, with other firms coming forward with products …

The AACR 2016 meeting presentations differed substantially from previous meetings. The  2016 meeting has brought near certainty that, indeed, defeating cancer is a reachable objective. The road is lengthy, but the speed in analyzing the data and acting upon them towards improvement is unprecedented. You will find the most important information about the AACR cancer meeting in the upcoming Prohost Letter. In the NEWS TAPIMMUNE …