Huge Leaps for Small-Cap Pharma Plays

Tickerspy’s Diabetes Index

DIABETES INVESTING IDEAS

• Popular long ideas: GNBT, NVO, MNKD
• Popular short ideas: GNBT, MNKD, ARRY
• Top dividend plays: NVO
• Pro favorites: NVO, PODD, DEPO

Sign up and track the Diabetes Index performance

DIABETES COVERAGE

These medical firms have significant exposure to treatments and therapies for diabetes

• Merck Hikes Diabetes Exposure Via Acquisition (MRK, JNJ, DEPO, ARRY, MNKD, SPEX, BIOD, AMLN, GNBT, ALKS, LLY, ARNA)
• Sharp Rebound for MannKind, Generex (GNBT, MNKD, SPEX, AMLN, NVO, ARRY)
• Home Diagnostics Buyout Powers Diabetes Segment (HDIX, ARRY, NVO, GNBT, AMLN, MNKD)

DIABETES CHART

DIABETES METRICS

Avg. Market Cap:	$11.0B
Avg. P/E Ratio:	0.0
Avg. Div Yield:	0.1%

Shares of Array BioPharma (ARRY) surged on Tuesday after the small-cap company signed a $60 million deal.

Array BioPharma announced this morning that it has entered an agreement with pharmaceutical giant Amgen (NASDASQ: AMGN). Amgen will pay $60 million upfront and additional milestone payments in return for exclusive worldwide rights to Array’s small-molecule glucokinase activator program, which includes one drug currently in clinical trials for Type 2 diabetes.

Amgen executive vice president or R&D, Dr. Roger M. Perlmutter, said “We are pleased to be collaborating with Array BioPharma in this arena, and are excited about the potential of this glucokinase activator.” Array shareholders are also excited as the stock is surging by more than 25% on a down-day for the broader market.

As a whole, the Diabetes Stocks Index is moving higher by 2% for the session. As of Monday’s close, the Index was trailing the S&P 500 by -4% over the last month.

DepoMed (DEPO), Generex Biotechnology (GNBT), and Biodel (BIOD) have all traded higher by as much as 3% today. MannKind (MNKD) is the segment’s top player over the last month, up by 33% after topping analysts earnings expectations in early November.

Elsewhere in small-cap pharmaceutical investing, Palo Alto, California-based Jazz Pharmaceuticals (JAZZ) is helping the Biotechnology Stocks Index after submitting a New Drug Application to the FDA for a fibromyalgia treatment. Prior to today’s jump, the stock was already up by 18% in the past five sessions.

Other biotech players have surged higher recently in a widely mixed sector. Cytori Therapeutics (CYTX), Nabi Biopharmaceuticals (NABI), and Curis (CRIS) were all up by 40% in the month leading to Monday’s close.

As of this writing the Diabetes Stocks Index and Biotechnology Stocks Index are both among the 75 worst-performing tickerspy Indexes over the last month. The Index performance charts clearly show that both segments have experienced a significant recent correction. It will be interesting to see whether more news can power the stocks higher to end the year.

Investors can track the above indexes and more than 250 others for performance trends and a suite of other metrics at tickerspy.com.

Tags: AMGN, ARRY, BIOD, CRIS, CYTX, DEPO, GNBT, JAZZ, MNKD, NABI