BioHealth Business Daily (CRL, DNDN, NEXM, RPC, TEVA, VVUS)

Earnings season has taken out some of the sting from biotech and biohealth trading reactions.  Today’s version of the BioHealth Business Daily is showing news and moves seen in Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. (NYSE: CRL), Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ: DNDN), NexMed, Inc. (NASDAQ: NEXM), Radient Pharmaceuticals Corporation (AMEX: RPC), Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited (NASDAQ: TEVA), and VIVUS, Inc. (NASDAQ: VVUS).

Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. (NYSE: CRL) is up for a day-two reaction to its planned acquisition of WuXi.  But shares are also from highs today after Moody’s said that it may downgrade Charles River on the deal.  Shares are up 0.8% at $33.83 on over 3.4 million shares.

Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ: DNDN) is one where gave a full stock, options, and short-selling review of over at BioHealthInvestor.com ahead of its pending FDA decision.

NexMed, Inc. (NASDAQ: NEXM) is today’s biggest gainer with volume in the BioHealth space.  The company last night announced that the FDA has cleared it to go ahead with the proposed Phase 2 trial of PrevOnco as its proprietary cancer treatment for patients with advanced, unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer).  Shares are up over 32% at $0.53 on over 26 million shares of volume.

Radient Pharmaceuticals Corporation (AMEX: RPC) is a rather unusual mover on the surface, although it may even be too small to bother caring about.  Radient said on Monday that it had created a Medical Advisory Board and added a Director of Oncology to lead its efficacy efforts to help RPC more aggressively accelerate market awareness and adoption for the company’s Onko-Sure IVD cancer test.  The market’s reaction is that things are moving too slow.  Shares are down over 14% at $0.92 on about 2.2 million shares.  The 52-week range is $0.20 to $2.59 and the average volume is 2.4 million shares.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited (NASDAQ: TEVA) turns out to not be quite as perfect as all of those 52-week highs might have led everyone to believe.  But they are also not indicative of a mess, as many biotech and drug operations have quality control issues throughout product and corporate life cycles.  Teva’s Parenteral Medicines business unit was given an FDA warning on its manufacturing after it failed to correct manufacturing problems at the Irvine, California manufacturing facility over issues regarding contamination in batches of an anesthetic.  Shares are down 1.1% at $60.20 on 4 million shares, which is not indicative of a price change nor of trading volume that any significant blow-ups are looming.

VIVUS, Inc. (NASDAQ: VVUS) is having a very good day with shares up 7% at $9.44 on almost 5 million shares (over twice-normal volume).  This stock was started with a Buy rating and a $15 target at Brean Murray.

You can join our free daily email distribution list to hear more about dividend trends, analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader and active trader alerts, news on Buffett and other investment gurus, IPOs, secondary offerings, private equity, and more.

JON C. OGG