biotech thread - wednesday 31st october

Morning all,

Yesterday saw some big falls in the biotech sector with a number of companies giving up some of their recent gains. In regards to announcements;

POH has agreed to license its Targeted Penetration Matrix (TPM) drug delivery platform technology to an Indian pharmaceutical company. Agila Specialties Private has arranged to license the TPM platform to develop an injectable antibiotic product.

The exclusive global license agreement will see Agila take responsibility for the costs of developing and commercialising the product. In return, POH will receive an upfront payment and royalties on net sales. Exact financial details were not released in the announcement.

BLT has completed the acquisition of US-based RNA interference therapeutics discovery company Tacere Therapeutics. The acquisition, first announced earlier this month, involved the issue of around $1.2 million in new Benitec shares and an agreement to split future potential licensing revenue with Tacere's owners. Tacere Therapeutics has a phase I/IIa ready hepatitis C treatment candidate TT-034, developed using Benitec's gene silencing technology ddRNAi.

Winners and losers
VSC has a great day yesterday, closing up 10.53%. EMS posted a solid gain of 9.09% as the presentation of final trial results moves closer. Most of the big movers of the day were in the red.

TIS took a heavy hit yesterday on news that it will have to undertake a further study totaling 210 days due to an unfavorable device classification decision. Despite being lower at the start of trade, TIS managed to recover to fall by 17.20 percent. NEU and VLA, two stocks that have performed well recently, both gave up some of their gains to close down 10.87% and 12.90% respectively after a day of profit taking.

After a poor performance yesterday, it would not surprise me to see the sector bounce back as it often has in the past few weeks. With the Annual Ausbiotech Conference currently under way, a bold performance for the final days of the week should be likely following the investor presentation session.

Have a great day,
Hammer