U.S. stocks were set to open little changed on Monday, after a two-week decline pushed the S&P 500 back into negative territory for the year, as investors expected the start of the corporate earnings season. Oil prices kept on their downward march and helped weaken futures, with Brent down 3.8 percent to $48.20 and U.S. crude down 3.7 percent to $46.59 as Goldman Sachs slashed its short-term price forecasts and Gulf producers showed no signs of curbing output.
These are boom times for biotechnology: Forty-one new drugs were officially accepted for US sale in 2014, the biggest number in 18 years. A record 63 biotech startups went public, breaking the 1999 record of 52 initial public offerings. The value of biopharma merger deals nearly tripled to $223 billion from a year earlier.
Few of the top stocks from biotechnology stocks are as follows:
Avalanche Biotechnologies Inc (NASDAQ:AAVL) is going up 0.84% and touches the figure $58.89, following the news update that the company declared the pricing of its public offering of 2,399,457 shares of its ordinary stock at a public offering price of $59.00 per share, before underwriting discounts, commissions and estimated expenses. 2,009,457 of the shares of ordinary stock are being offered by Avalanche and 390,000 of the shares are being offered by existing stockholders.
Arca Biopharma Inc (NASDAQ:ABIO) declined -0.58% to $0.870, in the recent trading session and reported its insider transaction. The 10% Owner of ARCA biopharma Inc, Mccormack Riley sold 550,000 shares at $0.92 on January 7, 2015. The Insider selling deal had a total value worth of $506,000. The Insider information was disclosed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in a Form 4 filing.
ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc.(NASDAQ:ACAD), hits the new 52-week high of $34.64, and is now at 2.13% upsurge to $34.19. The company declared that it will present at the 33rd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on Tuesday, January 13, 2015, at 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time in San Francisco. A live webcast of ACADIA’s presentation will be available on the company’s website, www.acadia-pharm.com, under the investors section and an archived recording will be accessible on the website through January 27, 2015.
Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.(NASDAQ:ACHN) dipped -2.68% to $14.14, after the news that the company declared positive interim results from two studies supporting a short duration, potentially best-in-disease regimen of its proprietary NS5A and nucleotide inhibitors, ACH-3102 and ACH-3422. Achillion affirmed 100 percent SVR4 results from the continuing six-week trial. This study is an interferon-free, ribavirin-free, Phase 2 open-label, randomized study to evaluate the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of six weeks of 50 mg of ACH-3102 and 400 mg of sofosbuvir, a marketed nucleotide polymerase inhibitor, once daily, in treatment-naive genotype 1 HCV-infected patients. The primary objective of the analysis is determination of sustained viral response 12 weeks (SVR12) after achievement of therapy.
