Amgen's D-mab Delights Investors

Amgen (AMGN) surprised the market late on a summer Friday by announcing positive test results from the big, crucial study of its experimental osteoporosis drug.

The stock shot up after hours and continued to rally yesterday. But as I pointed out in a recent post there has been a recent spike in the Amgen short interest (more investors betting the shares would go down), so short covering is also spurring the rise, though Barron's reported this weekend that the Amgen short interest did drop more than five percent from June 30th to July 15th.

I'm not trying to rain on Amgen's parade (although I'm almost certain some readers will accuse me of that), but investors remain focused on the company's anemia drug sales. And the Food and Drug Administration has yet to issue new guidelines/restrictions of those drugs on cancer patients.

And speaking of the FDA. Commissioner Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach has accepted an invitation to guest host CNBC's "Squawk Box" on August 14th. That should be appointment television for investors in biopharma and medical devices.