Some of Monday's biggest action came in the pharmaceutical sector, where
numerous drugmakers touting hepatitis C drugs saw significant stock movement.
Pharmasset Inc. (NASDAQ: VRUS ) and Inhibitex (NASDAQ: INHX ) made impressive
gains Monday on favorable news about their hepatitis C treatments. Pharmasset
finished the day up almost 5%, at $72.23, after reporting that its product
PSI-7977, an experimental hep C drug cured all patients in a recent study. The
smaller Inhibitex ($760 million market cap to VRUSs $5.45 billion) shot up
almost 14% to $9.72 after reporting success with its own trial drug, INX-189.
However, their gains came at Vertex Pharmaceuticals' (NASDAQ: VRTX ) expense.
Vertex, which launched its own hepatitis C drug, Incivek, in May, saw its shares
plummet more than 9% to $33.22 on its competitors' red-letter reports. Vertex
has lost almost 16% in November after losing 11% in October, dampening an
otherwise great third quarter in which Incivek sales grew almost 600% and the
company reached profitability for the first time. Flat sales from September from
October already cast doubt over whether Incivek could meet analyst expectations
of $2 billion in sales for next year, so the success of two rivals' drugs
doesn't bode well for Vertex. Shaking and baking on its own dime was the
world's biggest biotech company, Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN ), which announced a $5
billion share repurchase that was met with a 6% bump in share price, putting
AMGN near a four-month high at $58.43. The company made nice with shareholders
earlier this year, too, when it declared its first quarterly dividend (28
cents). Amgen will begin buying back shares Tuesday around $54 to $60 apiece,
according to Bloomberg . Three Up Dreamworks Animation (NASDAQ: DWA ): Up 11.96%
($2.08) to $19.47. Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH ): Up 5.03% ($1.18) to $24.66.
Express Scripts (NASDAQ: ESRX ): Up 4.16% ($1.88) to $47.09. Three Down Diamond
Foods (NASDAQ: DMND ): Down 15.75% ($7.31) to $39.09. Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU
): Down 7.83% (18 cents) to $2.12. Best Buy (NYSE: BBY ): Down 3.11% (85 cents)
to $26.46. As of this writing, Kyle Woodley did not own a position in any of the
aforementioned stocks. Check out recaps from previous trading days here .
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