Monsanto Rises on Expectation of Arthritis Drug FDA Approval
St. Louis, Missouri, Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Monsanto Co. shares rose as much as 6.5 percent on anticipation that the company's experimental arthritis pain drug will win U.S. approval.
Shares of St. Louis-based Monsanto rose 3 to 49 5/16 at midday and are up 11 percent in the last two days of trading.
Neither the company nor the FDA has released any news about the drug's approval. If it's approved, Monsanto will sell it with marketing partner Pfizer Inc., the New York-based maker of the impotence drug Viagra.
Investors have been expecting approval of the drug, called Celebrex, before the end of 1998.
''This is the last day in December,'' said Christina Heuer, an analyst with Solomon Smith Barney. ''This is going to be one of the biggest new drugs next year. That's what everybody is anticipating.''
It's ''widely believed,'' that the company filed for approval of Celebrex in late June, said Heuer. Since the company won a priority six-month review, investors are looking for a decision in late December, she said.
Monsanto, a top chemical company moving increasingly into pharmaceuticals, never officially disclosed when it filed for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of Celebrex, a member of a new class of painkillers expected to generate sales of as much as $5 billion.
Monsanto's Searle pharmaceutical unit is seeking approval of the drug. Whitehouse Station, New Jersey-based Merck & Co., the world's biggest drugmaker, is also seeking approval of a drug in the same class, known as Cox-2 inhibitors. They promise pain relief with fewer gastrointestinal side effects than current treatments, the companies have said. |
