A Glance At This Week's Top Healthcare Stories

• Shares of HEB furtively peaked on Monday following an announcement that Ampligen’s advisory committee meeting date had been set, but shares were unsuccessful in maintaining that high and closed the week off by about 20%.
• Cell Therapeutics continues to meander downwards since Pixuvri’s European launch on the 11^th, but a brief rally following the release of Phase I data on Monday was unsustainable even through the day.
• Questcor continued to delight the shorts this week. We said that with potential fines and insurance reimbursement hurdles, we would not be surprised to see shares of QCOR trade into the teens. Rightly so as the stock closed Friday below $19. Clinging to the same sinking ship is PPHM, which descended to its pre-data lows.
• The hiring of a new CFO, combined with a short-squeeze, helped drive shares of Savient Pharmaceuticals up Monday, however skepticism over Krystexxa’s near-term revenue generation caused the stock to fall back.
• Since our original report, Pain Therapeutics has climbed roughly 25%, and we noted this week that Pfizer’s latest investor presentation contained more evidence of a Remoxy resubmission to the FDA.
• We added three interviews to our ongoing video series, this time with SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Ventrus Biosciences, and Spectrum Pharmaceuticals. We previously wrote about SciClone’s China-focused business model, which is worth another look as a Long play.
• MRGE ended the week a tad lower than it opened, but received a lift on Thursday when sources reported that the company was in discussions with a potential buyer. We issued a report on Merge in the middle of the month, and maintain that the company has significant upside potential.
• NAVB reported that the FDA granted the company a Type A meeting in October, signaling that approval of Lymphoseek could come in six months or less if manufacturing issues can be cleared up. While we wrote positively on the news, the stock shed earlier gains and closed down 8.3% for the week.
• A $2.6M milestone payment from Novabay’s development partner confirmed the clinical advancement of NVC-422, which should strengthen shares, although gains have yet to materialize.
• ARIAD Pharmaceuticals bounced back from weakness on Wednesday while a data release delay caused CPRX to fall off. With no other negative catalysts, however, we advised that the stock should begin running-up ahead of the rescheduled November release. So far, that has yet to begin and the stock ended down since our article was published.
• Achillion keeps advancing and has returned 80% since we began covering the company in August. Possible HCV candidates continue to fall by the wayside and have made ACHN a more and more attractive play in the segment.
• In the second half of the week, Exelixis regained some of its earlier losses, but investors should take the immense amount of shorts and recent volatility as a signal to tread cautiously, regardless of the company’s upcoming PDUFA date.