December 2014
The biggest biotechnology blunders of 2014
Biotechnology investors understand that their appetite for speculation brings both risk and reward, but it is likely that even the bravest stockpickers will be happy to leave 2014 behind.
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- Jessica Gardner
April 2014
How to pick the next hot biotechnology stock
It’s a harsh but true assessment that many investors don’t understand biotechnology. So what hope is there for retail investors to profit from the next wonder drug?
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- Jessica Gardner
June 2013
2013 a tough year for small caps
The past 12 months have been a miserable affair for many small caps, with the index now trading at its lowest point since April 2009.
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- Sally Rose
March 2013
Alchemia taps investors for $12m
Alchemia is the latest biotech to tap investors, with the company poised to raise $12 million at 30¢ a share through RBS Morgans.
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- Sarah Thompson | Anthony Macdonald
February 2012
Biotechs making a steady recovery
There is likely to be a sharp pick-up in interest in Australian biotechs this year as they move into their next phase of growth, which will pave the way for them to be taken over by global drug companies.
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- Brendon Lau
July 2011
Alchemia (ACL)
Alchemia could double in value after investors endured a volatile two weeks in which its share price surge 30 per cent to a 1.5-year high of 80¢ on July 13.
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May 2010
Biotech sector dodges a bullet
The biotechnology sector dodged a bullet since the global financial crisis but faces familiar hurdles, writes Peter Roberts
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- Peter Roberts
March 2010
Interest in Qld business hubs increases
Technology and professional companies are increasingly moving into specialist business precincts as Queensland makes effort to attract knowledge-based industry.
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- Mark Fenton-Jones
January 2010
Investors take a battering
Last year proved to be both the worst of times and the best of times for small cap investors who have been battered by the market.
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- Brendon Lau
November 2009
December 2008
June 2008
Delay cuts Alchemia forecast
ABN Amro Morgans has reduced its price target and earnings forecast for biotechnology firm Alchemia due to an expected delay in the offering of a product to stop blood clots after surgery.
- Staff reporter
February 2008
New generics may fix what ails Alchemia
Ailing Alchemia's new generic offerings are just what the doctor ordered Like many other biotech stocks, Alchemia's share price has been hit hard in recent weeks, falling by about 30 per cent. In fact, the stock has performed poorly for the last year, being 60 per cent off its 12-month high of $1.28. Alchemia has two core commercial programs it is developing. The first is a generic version of the GlaxoSmithKline drug Arixtra, called fondaparinux. This is a synthetic heparin product used as a blood thinning agent. The second program is a platform technology that seeks to improve the performance of existing oncology drugs on the market. This program is moving into Phase III studies in the second half of 2008. Alchemia's fondaparinux is expected to be the first Arixtra generic to be filed for approval in the US. This is most likely to occur in the next few months, with the market launch set for 2009. Being the first to file for a new generic brings considerable commercial advantage. Generic companies normally scramble to be the first to market in the US because it gives them a 180-day exclusivity period. This tends to be very profitable spell for a company, plus it helps it establish its product in the market before a flood of other generics get approval six months later. For Alchemia there's further upside because there doesn't appear to be any other generics looking to compete in this market. The reason for this is the level of difficulty in making the drug, which involves more than 50 manufacturing steps. Alchemia's core technology - on which the company was formed - allows it to reduce this process by half, thereby giving it commercial pricing power against the branded product. Last week, GlaxoSmithKline released US sales figures for Arixtra of US$32 million for the last quarter of 2007, a 45 per cent increase over the previous corresponding period. Full-year sales for the drug were US$109 million in the US. It's not the massive market Alchemia had been hoping for - the global heparin market is worth about US$4 billion a year - but it should still deliver a nice profit share to Alchemia. The real upside comes if the fondaparinux market expands, which is dependent on GlaxoSmithKline gaining wider regulatory approval for other heparin indications. Alchemia joins a growing list of biotechs with product sales or new product launches approaching. With close to $1 billion a year flowing into the sector now, we should see more companies begin to reap the gains of the investments made in the sector over the last decade. And with at least five companies expected to file drugs for regulatory approval in 2009, which is almost unheard of outside of the US, interest in the biotech sector should ramp up over the coming 12 months. *Mark Pachacz is co-editor of Bioshares.
- Mark Pachacz*
August 2007
September 2006
March 2006
$170m merger may light fuse
Interest in the laggard biotech sector may pick up after Alchemia and Meditech unveiled a $170 million merger proposal yesterday to create a diversified cancer research company
- Eli Greenblat
October 2005
Wine flow fortifies Evans & Tate
All in all, it's been a bad year for small wine companies, as a grape glut and the enormous power of supermarket-owned liquor stores has squeezed margins.
- JAMES HALL with Tracy Lee and Henry Byrne
August 2005
October 2004
Infection breakthrough lifts Alchemia
Shares in junior biotech Alchemia rocketed more than 80 per cent yesterday after early tests of its antibiotic compounds gave hope of beating hospital-acquired infections, a problem that costs the US nearly $US5 billion ($6.8 billion) annually.
- Eli Greenblat