didn't check into ih link yet however...
Examining a mj outperformer....keeps taking out 52wk highs.
MAXD pullback much more contained (at least at this point) then would have thought on the news...
USAC among better responses to earnings, although seems as if earnings leak...
As we examine ICPT pullback...
WHITEFISH, MT / July 24, 2014 / Fat is driving the bus these days in one narrow, but widening, biotech sector as companies strive for dominance. Among these are Galectin Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: GALT), Intercept Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ICPT), Raptor Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: RPTP) and Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD), all of which are in search of a cure for one stage or another of "fatty liver disease."
Fatty liver disease, at its extreme, means certain death. The prize these companies are seeking is not only to cheat death but also to claw back some of the astronomical healthcare costs related to the condition. Taking into account the varying stages of fatty liver disease, the U.S. market is projected to be valued at up to $40 billion by 2025. There's always the liver transplant option, right? Wrong. One estimate, from TransplantLiving.org, places the cost of a liver transplant at nearly $600,000 and that estimate does not even cover all the other healthcare costs on the long road to referral for a transplant. For the half a million people in the U.S. that have liver cirrhosis or the up to 15 million people suffering from fatty liver disease, the hope for a transplant is not good either, considering only about 6,300 liver transplants are conducted annually.
Worse yet, diagnostics outside of a biopsy are lacking and there are no FDA approved therapies for the treatment of liver fibrosis, which explains the value Wall Street is placing on this relatively unattended segment of biotech.
Medical terms for these related diseases and their stages vary. NAFLD is a catch-all term meaning nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (estimated to affect about 30% of the North American population); NASH refers to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, a condition which, according to a statement at Science.gov, "can progress to cirrhosis in 15-20%" of patients. The statement goes on to show that NAFLD "may predispose patients to hepatocellular carcinoma," i.e., liver cancer. The U.S. National Institutes of Health notes that "NASH occurs in people who drink little or no alcohol and affects 2 to 5 percent of Americans, especially people who are middle-aged and overweight or obese," and that the condition also occurs in children.
From a clinical stage perspective, Intercept is leading the race, having delivered positive data from a Phase 2 trial of obeticholic acid (OCA) earlier this year. Shares tripled on the news. Galectin, a newly-coined member of the Russell 2000, is nipping at Intercept's heels and actually may be closer than what first appears with a Phase 1 trial because of the potential to treat fatty liver disease even once it has progressed. What distinguishes their approach from others that the timing of intervention with their proprietary carbohydrate polymer drug GR-MD-02 may be largely irrelevant to outcomes, with GR-MD-02 seeming to work well even in advanced stages of liver fibrosis. This is especially important in fatty liver diseases because they are silent killers, often going undiagnosed for many years. The Galectin drug was granted FDA fast-track approval nearly a year ago.
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