New Emerging Biotech and Pharma Company Index

The accompanying table includes the Top 40 rated companies in the ETF Innovators (ETFI) Emerging Bio-Pharma Index, which includes U.S.-listed companies with market caps between $150M-$1.5B and factors in each company's approved products, late-stage clinical pipeline, trailing 52-week stock price performance, and market cap weighting to calculate a stock rating.

The index has performed much better than its peers over the past year for both the Top 40 Rated (-9%) and all 76 companies (-15%) – doing better than the Healthcare Sector SPDR (XLV) (-33.6%), iShares Nasdaq Biotech (IBB) (-26%), PowerShares Dynamic Pharma (PJP) (-24%), iShares Micro-Cap Index (IWC) (-50%), and iShares Russell 2000 Small-Caps (IWM) (-46.7%).

The index is structured to include innovative, research-driven biotech and pharmaceutical companies while excluding generic drugs (ETFI Healthcare Cost Containment Index), diagnostic products (ETFI Preventive Medicine), and over-the-counter products – which are already tracked in the respective indexes listed.

Also, check out the related post on 52 companies with market caps below $150M which includes potential buyout candidates based on several deals over the past year focused on out-of-favor, micro-cap cancer drug development companies. The Top 40 rated companies include a mix of development stage cancer biotechs such as Dendreon (DNDN) & Synta Pharma (SNTA), vaccine maker Emergent BioSolutions (EBS), regenerative medicine developer Osiris Therapeutics (OSIR), cardiovascular drug developer CV Therapeutics (CVTX), and niche enzyme-based drug maker BioMarin Pharma (BMRN).

Comments

[Mike Havrilla:]

Below is link to my original blog post where you can click on the image to enlarge or download:
www.etfinnovators.com/...

2008 Nov 23 10:17 AM

[jimmy Turano:]

I NOTICED MDRNA INC(MRNA) ISN'T ON THE LIST! I KNOW IT IS ONLY .26 CENTS, BUT WITH A NEW MANAGEMENT TEAM, AND HUNDREDS OF NEWS RELEASES, AND RNAI BEING SO HOT THESE LAST 6 MONTHS, DON'T THEY HAVE POTENTIAL? OR WILL A POTENTIAL PARTNER LOOK AT THEM THE SAME WAY YOU LOOK AT THE ONES THAT MADE YOUR LIST?
OR IS IT BECAUSE THEY ARE ON A DE-LISTING STATUS ? OR THEIR HIGH BURN RATE?
LASTLY, HOW COME THIS STOCK HASN'T BEEN MENTIONED ON SEEKING ALPHA SINCE THE DAYS JIMMY CRAMMER TOUTED IT.
INVESTORS LOVE HYPE AND AS LONG AS THERE IS STILL HOPE, NO MATTER HOW DOOMED THE STOCK BECOMES, THEY ARE STILL IN IT, STILL BUYING IT AND CHASING IT UNTIL IT GOES UNDER A DIME!

2008 Nov 23 10:47 AM

[Hank Waters...:]

One of the more promising biotechs to come along in recent years is a platform technology company named Lpath, Inc. [LPTN, with a market cap of $50M-$60M]. They are the first (and only, I believe) company to ever generate monoclonal antibodies against bioactive-lipid targets, an emerging frontier in drug discovery.

They have two drug candidates in Phase 1, one of which is now partnered with Merck-Serono in a major worldwide collaboration.

HW

2008 Nov 24 04:33 PM