Stock Commentary - Europe - week to Feb 12, 2007

EUROPEAN: bourses ended the reporting week to February 12 with small losses, having gyrated through the period. Stocks fell most sharply on February 8, on concerns about eurozone interest rates. ZURICH saw a poor performance from drug major Roche, which fell 4.6%, after posting what were record 2006 results but which disappointed some investors who had been looking for a more aggressive 2007 guidance from the firm (Marketletter February12). Bigger rival Novartis gained just 0.5% and Actelion fell 3.7% as investors booked profits following the stock's recent sharp rises. PARIS saw bioMerieux rise 5.0% after Exane BNP Paribas upgraded the firm to outperform from neutral with a 73 euro share price target, highlighting "favorable demographic trends and increased screening requirements" for the in vitro diagnostics market, reported Sharewatch Online. Drug major Sanofi-Aventis dipped 0.4% ahead of 2006 results, impacted by negative news relating to its US patent on Lovenox (enoxaparin) and a delay in approval of Acomplia (rimonabant; see pages 2, 3 and 19).

LONDON: share prices bucked the mainland European trend, with the FTSE 100 ending the week up 0.6%, despite profit-taking on the last trading day. Little Acambis shot up 16.6% after its second-largest stockholder, Goldman Sachs, increased its stake in the company to 15%. Antisoma fell back 4.8%, having risen more than 10% the previous week on reports that it is in talks to outlicense its AS1404. Of the drug majors, GlaxoSmithKline gained 4.4% after reporting strong 2006 results and better-than-expected guidance for 2007 (see page 5), while AstraZeneca dipped 0.8% on profit-taking.