Stock Commentary - Europe - week to Feb 4, 2008

EUROPEAN: bourses were all up significantly in the week to February 4. In FRANKFURT, Morphosys, charged forward 12.2%, continuing a positive two-week trend, helped by Deutsche Bank analyst Holger Blum giving it a buy rating and 66-euro price target. Bayer and Merck KGaA rose 3.8% and 5.4%, respectively. Diagnostics group bioMerieux was strong on the PARIS bourse with a 5.5% rise, after reporting 2.5% growth in 2007 sales to $1.64 billion (Marketletter February 4), while Sanofi-Aventis fell 3.8%. There were significant gains on the AMSTERDAM exchange where Akzo Nobel jumped 6.8% on January 31 after a trading update showed better-than-expected results for recently-acquired ICI. The Dutch chemicals firm was up 15.9% on the week. Movements were mixed for the drug majors on the ZURICH exchange with a 3.4% rise for Roche on strong 2007 results (Marketletter February 4), but Novartis dipped 0.4%.

LONDON: share prices saw a good recovery with a 4.1% rise for the FTSE 100 on the week. The top gainer among drug stocks was Elan, up 13.4%, despite two of its executives selling shares. AstraZeneca fell 2.4% after the Anglo-Swedish drug major reported disappointing fourth-quarter 2007 sales (see page 7) and GlaxoSmithKline lost 0.9% after European regulators sought expanded warnings on Avandia (rosiglitazone). Shire dipped 0.3% on the week and closed down 4.4% on January 28 after a downgrade from Sanford Bernstein analysts, who cited disappointing uptake data on Vyvanse (lisdexamfetamine mesylate), the successor to its blockbuster attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder drug Adderall XR (mixed amphetamine salts), which loses patent protection in April 2009.