Biotech market remains strong
Biotech stocks continued their rise, while the broader markets were mixed, in Friday's trading session. At the market close, 74 biotech companies in the BioCentury 100 had traded up, while only 22 stocks were down, putting the index up 1 percent on the day. Meanwhile, the NASDAQ Composite slipped 11 points (0.3 percent), the S&P 500 Index was down 2 points (0.1 percent) and the Dow Jones Industrials inched forward 10 points (0.1 percent).
Friday's move came on the heels of a 3 percent gain in the BioCentury 100 on Thursday, which was spurred by Wednesday's announcement of the NIH's guidelines for NIH-funded human pluripotent stem cell research (see BioCentury Extra, Wednesday Aug. 23). Stocks in that space - which include Geron (GERN), StemCells (STEM) and Aastrom (ASTM) - gave back some of their gains in Friday's session, after advancing strongly on Wednesday and Thursday (see BioCentury Extra, Thursday Aug. 24). GERN lost $1.938 to $29.75, STEM shed $1.719 (18 percent) to $7.938, while ASTM dipped $0.594 (14 percent) to $3.688 on the day. ...