Stock Commentary - Europe - week to May 29, 2006

EUROPEAN: bourses reversed their previous week's disastrous showing, with significant rises all round and the drug sector enjoying the same fortunes in the reporting week to May 29. All drug stocks tracked in FRANKFURT were higher except Schering AG, which dipped a modest 0.2% after resisting the downward movement by the rest of the pack previously. In ZURICH, Roche increased 2.5%, benefiting from the news that the European Union's drug regulator had granted approval for the use of its Herceptin (trastuzumab) in early HER2-positive breast cancer (Marketletter May 29). It also announced positive trial results of Herceptin in combination with AstraZeneca's Arimidex (anastrozole; see page 19). Actelion leapt 11.1%, after reporting good clinical data for its Tracleer (bosentan; see page 22). PARIS saw a strong showing from bioMerieux, which rose 6.1%, helped by the news that it is selling its hemostatis range of products for $60.0 million.

LONDON: share prices, despite a sharp fall on May 24, were higher, with the FTSE 100 up 4.7% on the holiday-shortened reporting week. There was not a lot of action impacting drug stocks, although Acambis rose 12.3%, basking in the news of a UK government contract for flu vaccine. Of the drug majors, AstraZeneca rose 3.3% and GlaxoSmithKline was up 2.1%, but both underperformed the market. Analysts at Lehman issued a review of winners and losers in the sector due to the relative weakening of the US dollar against the euro and sterling. Benefiting will be AstraZeneca and Swiss group Novartis, because they are dollar reporters, but not GSK, because of the large element of profit the company generates in the USA.