Look back at pharma news to June 3

Plucky US microcap Celator Pharmaceuticals has rewarded its investors this morning with a 70% stock price rise after agreeing to a $1.5 billion all-cash takeout offer from Jazz Pharmaceuticals over the holiday weekend. The company has now effectively provided its longer term shareholders with an 18-fold return over the past year, something which must stand as a record even in the most febrile moments of irrational biotech exuberance, comments EP Vantage, the editorial arm of the Evaluate group.

Celator of course famously beat the Feuerstein-Ratain rule – that heuristic that predicts failure for sub-$300 million market cap companies’ Phase III oncology readouts – when it reported a positive outcome to its pivotal study of Vyxeos against the “7+3” chemo regimen in acute myeloid leukemia in March. That stunning result was correctly predicted by EP Vantage some nine months earlier when Celator’s market cap was little above $50 million.

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