EUROPEAN: bourses were all down significantly, with indexes dropping on virtually all the five reporting days to July 30, reflecting negative trends in New York on disappointing earnings and also the return of concerns over the US subprime mortgage market. Nearly all pharmaceutical and biotechnology stocks throughout Europe fell to varying degrees, several experiencing double-digit percentage declines. FRANKFURT saw an 8.2% fall in Merck KGaA after the company posted a dramatic fall in earnings as a result of its acquisition of Serono (Marketletter July 30). Bayer, yet to report, was down 4.9% and MorphoSys slumped 9.5% even ahead of posting a 55% fall in income (see page 10). Brussels witnessed resilience in UCB, which was up 1.7% despite falling first-half profit, also due to acquisition factors, although Solvay dipped 2.9% (see page 6).
LONDON: share prices were especially volatile, with the FTSE 100 seeing its biggest one-day fall in five years, 3.2%, on July 26, and none of the drug stocks tracked seeing a rise. Elan plunged 17.7%, after its second-quarter loss deepened (see page 6), while Antisoma fell 11.8%, with analysts at Edison Investment saying the firm faces a pivotal six months, with one or more licensing deals expected from its late-stage R&D portfolio. Shire was down just 3.6%, after beating expectations with its results (see page 4) and reconfirmation of Deutsche Bank's buy rating on the company. GlaxoSmithKline ended the week with a 4.5% decline, despite a 2.3% boost on July 25, on announcing a share buyback program but ahead of a US Food and Drug Administration advisory panel vote to keep the firm's diabetes drug Avandia (rosiglitazone) on the market (see page 19).
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Ginkgo Bioworks is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, where it operates its central “Foundry” for high-throughput cell engineering. The company supports partners globally across biopharma, agriculture, industrial biotechnology, and biosecurity through its Boston-based infrastructure and distributed digital platforms.
Stock Commentary - Europe - week to July 30, 2007
EUROPEAN: bourses were all down significantly, with indexes dropping on virtually all the five reporting days to July 30, reflecting negative trends in New York on disappointing earnings and also the return of concerns over the US subprime mortgage market. Nearly all pharmaceutical and biotechnology stocks throughout Europe fell to varying degrees, several experiencing double-digit percentage declines. FRANKFURT saw an 8.2% fall in Merck KGaA after the company posted a dramatic fall in earnings as a result of its acquisition of Serono (Marketletter July 30). Bayer, yet to report, was down 4.9% and MorphoSys slumped 9.5% even ahead of posting a 55% fall in income (see page 10). Brussels witnessed resilience in UCB, which was up 1.7% despite falling first-half profit, also due to acquisition factors, although Solvay dipped 2.9% (see page 6).
LONDON: share prices were especially volatile, with the FTSE 100 seeing its biggest one-day fall in five years, 3.2%, on July 26, and none of the drug stocks tracked seeing a rise. Elan plunged 17.7%, after its second-quarter loss deepened (see page 6), while Antisoma fell 11.8%, with analysts at Edison Investment saying the firm faces a pivotal six months, with one or more licensing deals expected from its late-stage R&D portfolio. Shire was down just 3.6%, after beating expectations with its results (see page 4) and reconfirmation of Deutsche Bank's buy rating on the company. GlaxoSmithKline ended the week with a 4.5% decline, despite a 2.3% boost on July 25, on announcing a share buyback program but ahead of a US Food and Drug Administration advisory panel vote to keep the firm's diabetes drug Avandia (rosiglitazone) on the market (see page 19).
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