Stock Commentary - Europe - week to Sept 22, 2008

EUROPEAN: bourses ended an extremely volatile week to September 22 mixed, despite rises of up to nearly 10% on some markets ahead of the week-end, when the US government announced plans to help the toxic mortgage situation and the UK moved to restrict short-selling in financials. Drug majors largely underperformed their local markets. Roche was a casualty on the ZURICH exchange, due to a likely delay in the approval if it rheumatoid arthritis drug candidate Actemra (tocilizumab), seen as an important addition to the firm's product portfolio (see page 23). In PARIS, Sanofi-Aventis gave up more than its previous week's gain on news of a new chief executive (Marketletters September 15 and 22), falling 8.1% while the CAC 40 rose 1.3%. On the BRUSSELS bourse, Solvay and UCB strongly outperformed the BEL-20's 0.2% dip, both seeing a 6.1% advance.

LONDON: share prices in the drug sector saw wild variations. Little Alizyme continued to rocket, moving up a further 37.5%, on top of the already 83% gains made over the two previous weeks, on hopes that the entry of its obesity drug candidate cetilistat into Phase III clinical trials would trigger a milestone from Japanese partner Takeda, but more importantly rumors that it could be acquired by the latter. Biotechnology firm Protherics advanced 8.5%, after UK drug developer BTG announced plans to acquire the firm at 60 pence a share, a premium of 45.5% to its closing price on September 17 (Marketletter September 22). Antisoma was out of favor, falling 7.0% as investors await news of whether partner Swiss drug major Novartis will move forward with the develop ment of the UK-firm's ASA404.