Navidea Biopharmaceuticals Inc. disclosed positive results from the first interim analysis of its ongoing NAV3-31 phase IIb study. Analysis shows the data support Navidea's hypothesis that Tc 99m tilmanocept imaging can provide robust, quantitative imaging in healthy controls and in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
An already validated approach with Navidea Biopharmaceuticals Inc.'s radioimaging agent for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) might have presaged the victory, but that didn't stop Wall Street from rewarding the shares handsomely, and the stock (NYSE:NAVB) closed Tuesday at $1.10, up 32 cents or almost 41.5%, having traded as high as $1.36.
Gilead Sciences Inc.'s third-quarter earnings, though deemed satisfactory, brought lukewarm responses from Wall Street, with analysts such as J.P. Morgan's Cory Kasimov writing in a report that "these days the company's quarterly progress seems to take a back seat to how they [will] ultimately deploy their substantial amount of capital. The Galapagos deal notwithstanding, this feels like a long wait that's quite frankly getting a bit stale." Still reverberating is the arrangement this summer with Galapagos NV, of Mechelen, Belgium, which signed a 10-year research and development pact with Gilead under which Galapagos is getting $3.95 billion up front in hard cash plus another $1.1 billion in equity, in return for which Gilead will essentially have an option to ex-European rights on everything emanating from the firm's clinical and preclinical pipeline.
