Stock Commentary - Europe - week to April 20, 2009

EUROPEAN: bourses headed higher for most of the reporting week to April 20, but plunged on the last day, pulled lower by banks and  profit-taking, with some markets ending slightly higher and others down  marginally week-on-week. The star of the period was Basilea on the  ZURICH exchange, where it leapt 16.8% after Credit Suisse upgraded the  stock, saying the firm could also be a takeover target (see page 22).  The rest of the stocks tracked moved into reverse, with Actelion  declining 4.8%, Novartis 1.6% lower and Roche dipping 0.3%, despite  posting first-quarter sales growth (see also page 5). In BRUSSELS,  recently-rising Solvay fell back on profit-taking, with the company  confirming that it is viewing all options for its pharmaceutical  business. Drug stocks outperformed PARIS' 0.2% dip, with Sanofi-Aventis  advanced 2.2%, after announcing plans to bolster its late-stage  oncology pipeline with the acquisition of USA-based BiPar (Marketletter  April 20). Ipsen, which is in talks with the US Food and Drug  Administration aiming to resolve delays on its botulinum toxin type A  product Reloxin, gained just 0.2%.

LONDON: share prices in the drug sector were mixed, with a 39.4% leap  for Alizyme, which the firm's chief executive, Timothy McCarthy, told  the Marketletter was not the result of direct news, nor of a takeover  approach, but rather due to belated positive reaction to its 2008  results announcement, when it reported a sharply reduced loss  (Marketletter March 30). Phytopharm advanced 8.9%, boosted by news of a  new study with its Cogane (PYM50028) in Parkinson's disease. Pharma  majors AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline, gained 1.6% and 1.9%  respectively.