Biotech Industry Outperforming Markets in 2017: Latest Reports on Pulmatrix and Aeterna Zentaris
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / January 18, 2017 / Biotech and Pharmaceutical companies took a hit last week after President Trump criticized the drug industry at a press conference. Today's reports on Pulmatrix Inc. (NASDAQ: PULM) and Aeterna Zentaris Inc. (NASDAQ: AEZS).
"We have to get our drug industry coming back. Our drug industry has been disastrous. They're leaving left and right. They supply our drugs but they don't make them here, to a large extent. And the other thing we have to do is create new bidding procedures for the drug industry, because they're getting away with murder. Pharma has a lot of lobbies, a lot of lobbyists, a lot of power. And there's very little bidding on drugs. We're the largest buyer of drugs in the world, and yet we don't bid properly. We're going to start bidding. We're going to save billions of dollars over a period of time," said President Trump.
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The Biotech Industry has outperformed the broader markets, despite all the negative press drug manufacturers have been receiving. The iShares NASDAQ Biotechnology Index ETF and the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF have posted gains of 3.44 and 7.16 percent, respectively, year-to-date, compared to gains of 0.32 percent and 1.3 percent for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 Index.
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Pulmatrix's shares soared 127.97 percent to close at $1.55 a share Tuesday. The stock traded between $0.70 and $1.88 on a large volume spike of 17.49 million shares traded, against average daily volume of 48,610 shares. On January 17th, the company has announced that PUR1900, a treatment of fungal infections in the lungs of CF patients, has been designated as a "Qualified Infectious Disease Product" (QIDP) by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. Under the QIDP program, which is designed to speed the development of novel drugs against important pathogens, Pulmatrix will receive five years of additional market exclusivity for PUR1900.
"The new QIDP designation is a significant boost to our efforts to make this drug available as quickly as possible to cystic fibrosis (CF) patients suffering from fungal lung infections," said Pulmatrix CEO Robert Clarke, PhD. "It will give us the benefit of an expedited regulatory review. Added to our existing FDA Orphan drug designation for PUR1900, it will give us a full 12 years of market exclusivity."
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Aeterna Zentaris' shares spiked 13.73 percent to close at $2.90 a share Tuesday. The stock traded between $2.55 and $3.10 on volume of 789,472 shares traded. On January 4th, the company announced that the confirmatory Phase 3 clinical trial of Macrilen failed to achieve its objective of validating a single oral dose of macimorelin for the evaluation of growth hormone deficiency in adults (AGHD), using the insulin tolerance test as a comparator. The Company will evaluate the outcome of the trial and will determine in the near future whether it will continue with the development of Macrilen.
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