The five best performing stocks on the Zacks #1 Rank List last week were: Cadence Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (...

The two critical elements to watch in the pharmaceutical industry are product development and FDA approvals. If a company’s product development pipeline starts to get a bit thin, it will eventually lose revenue generating capacity as patents expire and competition moves in. If FDA approval isn’t obtained, the company is simply sunk in the US for that product.

As an investor, watching the product pipeline is the key. This is important not only for the company’s current and future profitability, but because other companies, which may not have the same product development strength, may become interested in acquiring it. In today’s pharmaceutical marketplace, this point is even more relevant as several larger pharmaceutical companies have exceedingly large pools of cash and pipeline/patent issues.

Avanir Pharmaceuticals Inc., a pharmaceutical development company, works to develop pharmaceutical products directed at chronic disease and neuropathic diabetic pain. The company is best known for

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Durect Corp. (DRRX) utilizes 6 proprietary drug delivery technologies to develop pharmaceutical systems that enhance treatment capabilities in the areas of chronic pain, cardiovascular diseases, and central nervous system disorders.The company recently received disappointing news when its lead pipeline candidate, Remoxy, failed to receive FDA approval in December 2008. While this news is a setback for the company, we believe that the product will ultimately receive approval and should see significant demand due to its ability to reduce the potential of drug abuse / misuse. Meanwhile, we remain optimistic on the remaining candidates in Durect's pipeline which consists of three candidates in phase II development.Moreover, we were pleased to hear about Durect's partnership deal with Alpharma (ALO) for Eladur. In our opinion, the current share price represents an attractive entry point. We thus rate the shares a Buy with a revised price target ...

Odyssey Healthcare Inc. (ODSY) is growing its hospice-care business through acquisition as revenue jumped 65.5% in the third-quarter. 2008 consensus estimates are 13% higher in the last 2 months. ODSY has a price-to-book of only 1.25.

Company Description

Odyssey Healthcare provides hospice care around the country for terminally ill patients and their families. ODSY offers pain management and addresses the psychological and spiritual needs of the patients and their families.

Odyssey uses nurses, doctors, home healthcare aides, social workers, chaplains, bereavement counselors and trained volunteers to provide care in patients' homes, nursing homes or assisted living facilities.

Odyssey Beat Wall Street Estimates by 35.17% in the Third Quarter

On Oct 28, Odyssey Healthcare reported third-quarter earnings and saw revenue rise 65.5% to $165.2 million from $99.8 million in the third quarter of 2007. Revenue was positively impacted by the March 2008 acquisition of VistaCare, Inc.

The company

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Data continue negative in the US…  China cuts rates… Chinese currency reserves to hit $2 trillion… And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

It sounds like retailers may be disappointed with the results of this years biggest shopping day, as there really isn’t any ‘must have’ items, and consumers are being a little tighter with their wallets.

Consumer spending as reported in the US on Tuesday slid the most in seven years last month. Another report released by the Commerce department showed business investment also tumbled last month. Orders for US durable goods fell twice as much as forecast. And spending in Europe, the UK, and Japan is also dropping. UK consumer spending dropped the most since 1995 and business investment also fell. The global slowdown has hit consumer and business confidence, encouraging them to reign in their spending. This can become a vicious cycle, as the slowdown in consumer and business spending causes

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Abbott Labs (ABT) is a consistent performer with diversified healthcare operations, including pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, medical nutrition products, and medical devices/stents. ABT is back to the lower end of its trading range near 50 bucks, presenting an excellent entry point with a 2.8% dividend yield and forward PE of about 14X. Celgene (CELG) is also trading at the low end of its trading range around 50 bucks as a large-cap growth stock focused on cancer biotech products and research with an estimated PEG ratio below one. China Medical (CMED) is trading near its IPO levels of August 2005 despite excellent growth prospects and is a buy below 20 bucks with a dividend yield of 2.5% and market cap of $540M as uncertainty over a $345M acquisition has spooked some investors, sending the stock down sharply by over 50% in the past three ...

President-elect Barack Obama is faced with the daunting challenge of fulfilling his campaign promises – promises he actually made, along with those that voters think he made.  Unfortunately, the latter category predominates.

The new president didn’t actually say much on the campaign trail, but he said it well. He invited Americans to dream, actually to fantasize, about an unreal world in which their government will care for them using its own unlimited supply of money – money that comes from some mysterious place that too few people have even thought about, much less understand.

Voters are said to have turned to the left, to liberal candidates, in part out of a desire to change the economy’s direction. Their choices at the polls are said to reflect their concern over the economy’s descent into recession, loss of jobs, and the collapse of their retirement accounts. These are legitimate and understandable concerns. Unfortunately,

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Performance Health Technologies, Inc. is giving sufferers of chronic pain new tools to combat muscle atrophy and other pain related problems. The company has developed advanced software that allows the user to visually monitor a wide range of body movements, a form of sophisticated motion-oriented bio-feedback that’s of special importance to those who have learned to be afraid of movement.

Chronic pain is different than other types of pain, posing a unique set of issues. Normally, pain is a protector of the body, a signal to discourage us from taking actions that can cause or aggravate injury. When pain is chronic, a professional diagnosis can look for hidden underlying causes, and prescribe appropriate treatment. Medication or surgery may solve the problem, but sometimes nothing works and the pain continues, suggesting that the pain signal itself may be the problem. Chronic pain can sometimes be

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Oxygen Biotherapeutics, Inc. is a pharmaceutical company dedicated to oxygen therapies and continuous substrate monitoring. For those unfamiliar with oxygen therapies, it refers to products that mimic human blood’s oxygen transport ability. Oxygen therapeutics are in turn broken into two categories based on transport mechanism: perfluorocarbon based, and hemoglobin based.

The Company has under development a perfluorocarbon therapeutic oxygen carrier and liquid ventilation product (Oxycyte®) and an implantable glucose sensor. Oxycyte®, once commercialized, may help patients recover from traumatic brain injury, sickle cell crisis pain, trauma, wound care, acute respiratory distress syndrome, stroke, myocardial infarction, surgery, and diabetes.

Yesterday the company announced that the animal studies conducted using rats given different doses of Oxycyte showed improved brain cognitive ability after brain trauma. The researchers found that injured animals treated with a dose of Oxycyte had significant improvement in ability to learn. The ability to learn and perform complex tasks (a maze)

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Acusphere, Inc. (ACUS) recently signed a definitive agreement with Cephalon, Inc. (CEPH) whereby Acusphere raised $20M in cash ($5M upfront and $15M in a senior secured convertible loan). In return for their money, Cephalon has licensed AI-525, a preclinical injectable celecoxib for post-op pain and the right to potentially license Imagify, a billion-dollar product for the detection of coronary artery disease.We are very pleased with the deal, especially in this environment. We regard it as a testament to the potential of Imagify. With the cash position now secure, all eyes turn to the FDA’s cardio-renal advisory panel meeting in December 2008. A positive review at that time should send the shares significantly higher.We also note that should Cephalon decide to license Imagify, Acusphere was able to maintain a significant portion of the economics. The deal entitles Acusphere to a sizable approval milestone of …