Stock Commentary - Europe - week to Feb 20, 2006

EUROPEAN: bourses meandered around during the reporting week to February 20, with all those tracked ending up to some degree, with no direction on the last reporting day from Wall Street, where the market was closed for a public holiday. FRANKFURT saw a great deal of activity in Schering AG, after the firm posted 2005 results, which beat forecasts, and announced its biggest ever share buyback program (see page 2). The stock ended 3.1% higher overall. Merck KGaA managed a 1.2% rise after posting a 34% profit hike for 2005 (see page 5), while Schwarz, down 2.8%, disappointed with its figures (see page 7). In PARIS, there was a poor showing for Sanofi-Aventis, down 3.8% on the week, on the news that the US Food and Drug Administration had issued an "approvable" letter for the firm's drug candidate rimonabant (Acomplia) as an obesity treatment, and a "not approvable" for the also sought-after smoking cessation indication (see page 19).

LONDON: share prices were stronger, with the FTSE 100 rising 1.2% on the week. The best performance came from little Provalis, which saw a healthy 12% rise on February 20 after the medical diagnostics group announced shareholders had voted in favor of the disposal of certain assets of Provalis Healthcare. As part of its ongoing review, the company said that it is also still in discussions that may lead to the sale of the business or the assets of the Medical Diagnostics division. Ireland's Elan gained 3.8%, on the news that the US FDA had removed the hold on clinical trial dosing of the firm's multiple sclerosis drug Tysabri (natalizumab). Drug majors AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline dipped 1.8% and 1.5%, respectively.