Biogen-Idec Earnings Preview (BIIB, DNA)

On Wednesday, we’ll get to see earnings out of Biogen Idec Inc. (NASDAQ: BIIB). The estimates from First Call for the biotech company are $0.80 EPS on $835.16 million in revenues.  Estimates for fiscal 2008 are $3.30 EPS on $3.58 billion in revenues.

Despite this stock having been much higher, analysts have an average price target north of $61.00.  Its hard to blame the analysts for not being more bullish since Biogen failed to attract any serious bidder.  Because of that failed bidding process, we’d throw the chart out the window for any long-term patterns and even for longer-term moving averages.  But on a short-term basis it looks like $55.00 held just about the entire time as support and shares are only about 5% under where they were before the company announced it was under strategic review.  If today’s stock price and options were to remain static, we’d say options traders were braced for a move of up to $1.80 to $2.25 in either direction.  We’ll also get to see if Carl Icahn is having any "company acknowledgment or capitulation" in his quest to add three board members.

Since we saw the numbers out of Genentech (NYSE: DNA) for Rituxan, we already have much of the key data for Biogen-Idec revenues.  The rest will boil down to earnings and expense management, along with any new drug data and guidance.

• Genentech earnings won, drug sales didn’t.

Biogen Idec Inc.’s 52-week trading range is $42.86 to $84.75.

Jon C. Ogg
February 4, 2008