Earlier this month, Cephalon Inc. (CEPH) announced that it has settled its patent infringement case with Barr Pharmaceuticals, which is now owned by Teva Pharmaceutical (TEVA). Barr was looking to market a generic version of Cephalon’s cancer pain management drug, Fentora.   As per the terms of the agreement, Barr has been granted a non-exclusive, royalty-free right to sell a generic version of Fentora in October 2018. However, if a generic version of Fentora enters the market prior to that date, Barr will be allowed to launch its generic version provided the other generic company does not enjoy marketing exclusivity. According to Cephalon, Fentora’s patent is not set to expire before 2019.   While we are pleased to hear about this settlement agreement with Barr, we note that another major generic player, Watson Pharmaceuticals (WPI), is also seeking to bring a generic version of Fentora to market....

Mylan Inc. (MYL) entered into a strategic partnership with Biocon Ltd to expand into the area of biotechnology. Biocon has a strong portfolio of biopharmaceutical drugs that include insulin, erythropoietin and monoclonal antibodies. The collaboration will help both companies to develop, manufacture and commercialize generic biotech medicines without duplicating associated costs. The deal mainly focuses on monoclonal antibodies used to treat diseases such as cancer and rheumatoid arthritis.

Mylan develops, manufactures, markets, licenses, and distributes generic, branded, and branded generic pharmaceutical products, as well as active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). In order to expand its product line, Mylan has been pretty active in forming strategic alliances with pharmaceutical companies to develop products or to launch distribution and licensing arrangements. After the acquisition of Merck Generics and Matrix Labs, Mylan is now the third-largest generic company in the world.

Mylan has a robust generic product pipeline and the total

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Phase III Development of Laquinimod Progressing - Patient Enrolment Completed

On June 25, 2009, Teva Pharmaceutical (TEVA) and its development partner, Active Biotech announced that they have finished enrolling patients for a second pivotal phase III clinical study, BRAVO, which is being conducted to evaluate the novel, oral once-daily immunomodulating compound, laquinimod, for the treatment of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS).

Multiple sclerosis is a nervous system disease that affects the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves. BRAVO will study the efficacy, safety and tolerability of laquinimod versus placebo. The trial has also been designed to provide risk-benefit data for laquinimod versus Avonex, a currently available injectable treatment.

The BRAVO study is being conducted with more than 1200 patients at 156 sites across the U.S., Europe, Israel and South Africa. Another phase III study, ALLEGRO, is currently ongoing in North America, Europe and Asia.

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Country classification has gotten really interesting in the past couple of years with the rising interest in emerging and frontier markets. But that's probably just my inner unrepentant nerd talking.

Right now, in the wake of MSCI’s reclassification of Israel as a developed market, I’m working on a rundown of the country classifications of four major index providers: MSCI, Dow Jones, FTSE and Standard & Poor’s.

The evolution of emerging markets (and sometimes devolution of developed markets—see Greece, which could lose developed-market status in the FTSE indexes) is just particularly fascinating to me. Take some of the frontier/emerging markets that the index providers cover at the very bottom rungs of the investability ladder: Latvia? Slovakia? Trinidad & Tobago? Mauritius?

Frankly, I’m dying to know what the investment stories are behind these tiny, tiny markets. And while I believe frontier markets (like, say, Vietnam) offer some awesome investment opportunities, is anyone really itching to

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The recent volatility from the Healthcare sector has left many investors weary about where to place their money. General market swings aside, M&A activity and legislative developments have intensified the uncertainty in the sector, but have also lead to many investment opportunities.

M&A has been very exciting and has ramped up heavily in the last few months.  Pfizer[PFE: 14.04, 0.00 (0.00%)] and Wyeth, Roche and Genentech [DNA: 0.00, N/A (N/A)], Merck [MRK: 27.16, 0.00 (0.00%)] and Schering-Plough, Gilead [GILD: 44.37, 0.00 (0.00%)] and CV Therapeutics have all hit the headlines.  Obama’s Healthcare Budget Plan has stirred up heavy trading in recent weeks, putting downward pressure on the Managed Care and Pharmaceuticals sectors, while giving a boost to the Generic Drugmakers. The market has rallied in the past week.  Is your portfolio ready

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Benjamin Graham, the teacher and mentor of Warren Buffett, wrote two seminal tomes on value investing called Security Analysis in 1934 and The Intelligent Investor in 1949. I was reading The Intelligent Investor at a time when the bear market following the dot com bubble was in full swing and I remember thinking to myself that some of what Mr. Graham mentions in his book may no longer hold true as even at that point  it was almost impossible to find stocks that met his criteria such as a Price/Book ratio of less than 1.5, a P/E < 15, uninterrupted dividends for last 20 years and an adequate margin of safety. If you like bargain hunting for things, you are probably aware that there is an intrinsic value to things and unless the seller is in distress it is very difficult to ...