Pharma, Biotech Stocks Avoid Much Of Early New Year’s Malaise

In other news, a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel will meet Wednesday to decide whether to recommend approval for a biosimilar drug, which represents a potentially cheaper alternative to Amgen Inc. ’s Neupogen. If it gains agency approval, this drug would be the first biosimilar to get the FDA’s OK and it could mark the beginning of a new drug-industry era in the United States.

The Wall Street Journal: Health-Care Stocks Avoid Market Malaise
For investors, health-care stocks are a panacea in good and bad times. After helping to lead the market higher in 2014, shares of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have started off the new year avoiding much of the malaise afflicting other sectors. The broader market has stumbled in the early days of the New Year, with the S&P 500 down 2.7 percent. (Strumpf, 1/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Biosimilar Drugs Face U.S. Test
The introduction in the U.S. of cheaper alternatives to complex biologic drugs faces a key test this week that could determine whether consumers and insurers will save billions of dollars on drugs to treat cancer and other ailments. A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel will decide Wednesday whether to recommend that the agency approve a drug known as EP2006 from Novartis AG ’s Sandoz unit. (Burton, 1/6)

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Pharma, Biotech Stocks Avoid Much Of Early New Year’s Malaise

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