Knees Rejoice!

Good news for those of us headed down the future road of joint degeneration: a study has been commissioned to examine whether or not stem cells can be used to regenerate cartilage. The study will start in retired race horses and if the procedure works, then a similar process would presumably be effective in humans. The potential implications of this are easy to imagine...no more suffering from cartilage loss due to sports injuries or wear-and-tear over time: just a treatment or two with regenerative stem cells to grow more tissue and back out you go to a pain free lifestyle. Of course this idea is still is in its relative infancy, but keep an ear out in the future.

Fierce Biotech Research Reported that here

This next one is for you job seekers out there: Biogen is on the lookout for a new CEO after James Mullen announced that he will be retiring this year, with his last day being June 8. This could send shockwaves through the company as they struggle with ongoing safety issues concerning Tysabri and they continue to struggle with the botched acquisition of Facet late in 2009, but maybe it was the right thing to do. Sometimes a breath of fresh air at the top can change things for a company...

Have a look at the Boston Globe piece for more

Heard of Dainippon? If not, you will soon enough if their potential blockbuster schizophrenia drug is approved by the FDA in the coming months. The Japanese company (which bought Sepracor last year) has filed a New Drug Application for lurasidone, which is supposed to work in a similar fashion to other atypical antipsychotics, but without the reported weight gain that have plagued manufacturers over the past year. With very promising clinical trial data, look for Dainippon to move up in value in the coming weeks as a likely approval looms...

Fierce Biotech on the NDA submission

And, just to make you more familiar...here's Dainippon's website


Finally, for those of you investing out there: Seeking Alpha reports that Gilead has the highest profit margins in biotech, but you'd have to dig further in the AFG50 for other potential winners...