Stock Commentary - Europe - week to Feb 16, 2009

EUROPEAN: major bourses were down significantly in the reporting period to February 16, with investors beginning to shift their funds into  government bonds and gold, and not encouraged by the financial rescue  package presented under the new Obama administration in the USA. Drug  stocks, despite several seeing declines, still mainly managed to  outperform. PARIS saw a 3.9% rise for Sanofi-Aventis, in a market that  was down 5.5%, after the drug major posted fourth-quarter 2008 results  that beat guidance and the company outlined a revised strategy under  its new chief executive (Marketletter February 16). The ZURICH bourse  saw a 1% gain for Novartis, which announced plans to get into the  lucrative blood thinner market by buying a product from Portola (see  page 3). Crucell was the only riser of the stocks tracked on the  AMSTERDAM exchange, moving up 2% after posting results showing that the  firm - which has been dropped as a takeover candidate by US drug major  Wyeth following the latter's acquisition by Pfizer - had moved back into  profit (Marketletter February 16).

LONDON: share prices in the pharmaceutical sector were mixed, with drug  majors AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline moving 1% and 2.1% lower,  respectively. Elan was down 9.3%, even though it reporting a narrowed  loss for 2008 (see page 7). Recently-depressed Phytopharm gained 8%,  ahead of an interim management statement. There was no apparent reason  for Alizyme's 10.3% fall, nor for the 10% decline at GW Pharmaceuticals.  Meanwhile, Prostrakan dipped 2.9%, despite announcing two marketing  deals for its chemotherapy nausea drug Sancuso (granisetron;  Marketletter February 16).