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The year in Review - 2012

Biotech Daily's 7th Birthday Editorial

 

April BDI-40 Down 3.7%, ASX200 Up 4.5%
Big Caps Up 5%

Alchemia Up 20%, Impedimed Down 60%, Pharmaxis 56%

 

May 1, 2013

 

The Biotech Daily Top 40 index (BDI-40), fell again in the month to April 30, 2013, down 3.7 percent, while the S&P ASX200 climbed 4.5 percent.

 

The three Big Caps of Cochlear, CSL and Resmed (which are not included in the BDI-40), more than recovered last month’s dip, up 5.0 percent, with CSL apparently an unstoppable behemoth up 5.8 percent to a market capitalization of $31,180 million, and up 65.3 percent for the 12 months to April 30.

 

Resmed also hit a record high on the back of record first quarter revenue and profit, up 5.0 percent to $7,174 million, while Cochlear fell a further 3.0 percent to $3,764 million – its third consecutive monthly fall. For the year-to-date, the Big Caps were up a collective 52.1 percent

 

The BDI-40 graph for the 12 months to April 30, 2013 looks a lot like Luna Park’s Scenic Railway, but the longer term charts (below) show that for the five years since April 2008, the BDI-40 has almost doubled in value (up 93.1%) while the ASX200 is still 8.2 percent below its position five years ago.

 

So much for data-mining some scraps of good news. At least we didn’t have to go into a trading halt and suspension to do so.

 

Twenty-eight of the Top 40 stocks fell in April, six were unchanged and six were up.

 

Heartware’s $86 million (6.3%) increase balanced Mesoblast’s $85 million (4.4%) fall, while the Pharmaxis $57 million phase III bronchiectasis trial tumble (55.9%) and the Sirtex $76 million (12.3%) dose sales-related retreat had a far greater impact than Impedimed’s 60 percent fall to $10 million.

 

Impedimed fell the furthest in April, but more importantly the company has shed 85.1 percent of its value in 12 months, down from $67 million.

 

Other deep falls included Phylogica down 40 percent to $6 million, Clinuvel (23.5%), Osprey (22%), Tissue Therapies (20.6%), Avita (18.9%), Medical Developments (17.9%), Atcor (14.3%) and Optiscan (13.3%).

 

The heroic few were led by Alchemia up 20.2 percent to $125 million on improved fondaparinux sales, followed by Antisense (14.3%), Bionomics (12.2%), Heartware (6.3%), Acrux (4.2%) and Allied Health (3.3%).

 

Outside the BDI-40, the AOD9604 sports controversy and positive Polynovo trial results put the peptide back into Calzada, up 70.6 percent to $29 million, with both Novogen and Suda climbing to market capitalizations of $24 million.

 

On the Nasdaq, Biota and Sunshine Heart rose 3.6 percent to $111 million and 8.8 percent to $57 million, respectively. 

 

 

BDI-40 v ASX200 Apr 30, 2008 - Apr 30, 2013

 

 

BDI-40 v S&P ASX200 Apr 30, 2012 - Apr 30, 2013