Child Learning Help

Posts Tagged ‘bio-defense stocks’

The Obama Administration has a different set of national defense priorities than the prior administration. These priority shifts could be significant to stock market investors interested in biomedical products and programs. With less emphasis on bombs and missiles, and more emphasis on diplomacy, the new administration is likely to be very friendly to innovative technologies of value to both public health and defense of the public against disease outbreaks, whether natural or man-made.

Several companies are well positioned to play an important role working alongside government in programs to prevent and contain disease outbreaks, whether the outbreaks are natural or intentional. Most of the companies that specialize in these programs are still small. Their stock can be acquired at reasonable prices with the expectation of growth as research programs and product development initiatives mature.

Emergent Biosolutions, traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol EBS, is the largest and best known of the biodefense specialty companies. This company has done an impressive job of landing large government contracts, and has many years of experience in the production of vaccines. Their product is the only vaccine approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to prevent anthrax infection. Emergent has additional programs to develop vaccines for botulism, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases of both defense and public health importance. Bucking the overall market, Emergent’s stock price has generally increased during the recent global downturn.

iBioPharma, Inc., traded on the OTC Bulletin Board under the symbol IBPM, is a newcomer to the public stock markets, but not to biodefense research. This company became public as a result of a recent spinoff from a larger parent company that focuses primarily on non-biotech markets. Since the spinoff, the stock price has dropped significantly, probably due to parent company shareholders shedding their holding in a company devoted to biodefense when they preferred to hold cash. iBioPharma has an exclusive relationship with a well-established research institute that provides it with patents, technology and product candidates including vaccines for anthrax, plague, and influenza. The U.S. government has funded development of part of the technology owned by iBioPharma.

PharmAthene, traded on the AMEX exchange under the symbol PIP, was formed in 2001 and is developing products for defense against both biological and chemical products. Initially backed by private venture capital funds, PharmAthene became public in 2007 through a reverse merger with Healthcare Acquisition Corporation. PharmAthene’s stock price has dropped significantly along with the market as a whole, despite significant government funding commitments tied to the achievement of various scientific benchmarks.