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Biotech / Medical : Amgen Inc. (AMGN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DEER HUNTER who wrote (644)	9/23/1998 11:50:00 AM
From: DEER HUNTER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1906

More bullish comments on the sector ...... cbs.marketwatch.com New drugs Biotech shares: Finally coming alive Stocks up 35% in past month amid deals, innovation By Thom Calandra, CBS MarketWatch Last Update: 11:29 AM ET Sep 23, 1998 SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Yes, there is hope for biotechnology stocks, California. An investment report on bright prospects for several companies, including industry leaders Amgen (AMGN) and Chiron (CHIR), lifted the battered U.S. biomedical group this week. <Picture><Picture> Donaldson Lufkinÿ Jenrette raised its rating for Chiron to "buy" from "market perform" on news of the company's $1.1 billion sale of its diagnostic division. The report helped send the California company's stock up almost 13 percent. Amgen, another California company, might benefit from a drug that could slow the destruction of bone mass. Amgen says the first human clinical trial of osteoprotegerin, based on a naturally occurring protein, "appears to be a critical regulator of bone mass." The Amex Biotech Index rose about 0.5 percent early Wednesday, then pared its gain. The barometer of drug hopefuls rose 3.4 percent Tuesday, bringing its gain in the past month to about 35 percent. The index of 15 U.S. biotechnology developers, which doesn't include Genentech, is still down more than 20 percent from its level a year ago. The group could enjoy greater gains this week in the wake of a biotechnology conference being held by investment bank Cowen & Co. in San Francisco. At that conference will be small companies and established ones, namely California's giant Genentech (GNE). Investment conferences are moving the stocks of several biotech companies this week, including those of depression drug developer Synaptic Pharmaceutical (SNAP). Synaptic will present at a Bear Stearns conference Thursday. Its depression drug will soon enter Phase 1 trials, traditionally the very first formal step ahead of Food & Drug Administration approval hearings in the United States. See related story. One tiny California company, Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals (HEPH), has seen its shares triple since touching a low on Oct. 27, 1997. Hollis-Eden receives practically no coverage from the investment community. The San Diego company is working on drug combinations for the treatment of AIDS, Hepatitisÿand organ transplant rejections. Bill Corbett at The Shemano Group in San Francisco says the company's Inactivin interrupts cellular factors, thus inhibiting AIDS' HIV virus from replicating. "The stock is rearing its head," said Corbett on Wednesday. "But it's still really early stage." Shemano Group raised almost $20 million for the company in a private placement. Corbett said Inactivin might begin Phase 1 trials in two months.