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Shares of drugmaker Medivation ( MDVN ) hit an eight-month high Monday after it reported successful early-stage cancer data as buyout rumors continued to circle the company. On Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, Medivation said that its drug candidate talazoparib, combined with low-dose chemotherapy, produced a clinical benefit in 23 of 40 patients with heavily pretreated cancers. The company noted that four of seven patients with ovarian cancer showed objective responses, or tumor shrinkage. At the same time, the Times of London reported that big British pharma AstraZeneca ( AZN ) is said to be preparing a bid for Medivation , which currently holds a stellar IBD Composite Rating of 97 thanks to strong growth of its sole marketed product, prostate-cancer drug Xtandi. Late last month, Medivation reportedly hired bankers to deal with buyout attempts, and last week it was said to have rebuffed a bid from Sanofi ( SNY ). Medivation stock rose 4%, above 53, near midday trading on the stock market today . It hit 54.55 intraday. The last time it cracked 54 was back in early August, before biotech stocks crashed. IBD’s Take: How healthy is Medivation’s stock, and how does it stack up vs. rivals? Stifel analyst Thomas Shrader wrote that the latest cancer data will likely make Medivation play even harder to get. “It’s hard to draw too much out of such a small data set from a single center — but these data will only make the company less interested in being acquired without very significant upside to the current value of the Xtandi franchise and at least conditional upside to the current value of the talazoparib franchise,” Shrader wrote in a research note. Scalper1 News
Scalper1 News