Swine Flu Small-Cap Jumps on FDA Announcement

• By the tickerspy.com Staff
• On 9:29 am EDT, Monday October 26, 2009

An Alabama-based small-cap biotech play was granted emergency use authorization for its H1N1 antiviral.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: BCRX - News) is up by 10% in the premarket after the FDA issued emergency use authorization (EUA) for its peramivir drug. According to The Wall Street Journal, the intravenous H1N1 antiviral is to be used only in patients who are not responding to treatment using Roche's (OTC: RHHBY - News) Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline's (NYSE: GSK - News) Relenza. The report also noted that BioCryst is completing production of about 130,000 courses of the drug, and is ready to produce more if required.

In testing, peramivir was shown to be as effective as a five-day Tamiflu regimen, but with fewer negative responses. Its intravenous delivery is a key benefit since Tamiflu and Relenza are approved only in pill and inhaler form respectively. These delivery methods can be difficult to administer to severely ill patients.

A look at the Swine and Bird Flu Stocks Index's performance chart since April shows that investors have been rewarded when buying on dips. However, in this, the most recent pullback for the sector, stock picking may get a little trickier.

Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD - News) is a fourth play on the H1N1 antiviral market. The company receives royalty payments from Roche's Tamiflu, a drug it developed.

Hemispherx Biopharma (AMEX: HEB - News) is also moving before the bell after the company announced that a Japanese research group "expanded the data on Ampligen," as a vaccine adjuvant.

Over the last month, only Alpha Pro Tech (AMEX: APT - News) has outperformed BioCryst with a 56% run on a demand spike for its N95 respirator masks. Meanwhile, Hemispherx, Dynavax (NASDAQ: DVAX - News), and Vical (NADSAQ: VICL) have all slipped by -15% or more.

As of this writing, the Swine and Bird Flu Stocks Index is trailing the S&P 500 fractionally over the last month. The performance is not enough to rank among the top-50 tickerspy Indexes for the period, but investors should keep a close eye on the sector as the H1N1 swine flu pandemic spreads.

Fun and informative, tickerspy.com is a free investing website where you can track multiple stock portfolios and compare against 250 proprietary Indexes tracking themes from stem cells to green energy to precious metals. Best of all, tickerspy.com lets you spy on the portfolios of nearly 3,000 Wall Street institutions and hedge funds and see graphs of their performance. Try tickerspy.com today and find out how you stack up against investing legends like Warren Buffett!

Buzz up!