Tuesday, August 28, 2007

CORT - update

After trading as high as $3.00 on Monday, CORT has declined to $2.77 today, Tuesday. The pivot break-out on CORT was $2.74 and it is not unusual for a stock to make an initial pop and then retrace to it's break-out price level before taking off for good.

This was published on Briefing.com this morning:

CORT Corcept Therapeutics: Speculator's Radar -- former biotech bust is making a comeback; thinly traded though (2.83 -0.13)

Corcept Therapeutics was given up for dead as recently as April when it was trading at $0.75, but it's now near a new 52-wk high and showing good momentum with some potential catalysts up ahead.... Corcept Therapeutics (CORT) is a development stage biotech co focusing on severe psychiatric disorders associated with a steroid hormone called cortisol. The co's lead product candidate, Corlux, modulates the effect of cortisol by blocking the binding of cortisol to one of its two known receptors. The stock sold off in Aug 2006 when the co announced that three clinical trials failed. However, the co thinks it learned enough, particularly regarding the necessary plasma level, to design a Phase 3 trial that will be successful. CORT expects to begin enrollment for this new study in Q1 and the co has been granted fast track status by the FDA... Psychotic major depression, or PMD, is a serious psychiatric disorder that affects 3 mln Americans. It's more prevalent than schizophrenia or bipolar I disorder. PMD is characterized by severe depression accompanied by psychosis (delusions and/or hallucinations). People with PMD are 70x more likely to commit suicide and often require lengthy and expensive hospital stays. There is currently no FDA-approved treatment for PMD, and CORT is hoping to become the first. Current PMD treatments include electroshock therapy and combination drug therapy but they both have slow onsets and debilitating side effects.... Aside from the PMD trial, another potential catalyst is the co's co-development deal with Eli Lilly (LLY) evaluating Corlux's ability to mitigate weight gain when using the antipsychotic drug Zyprexa (90% of users gain weight). The stock spiked when the co reported positive trial results in June.... Bottom Line, this stock was given up for dead as recently as April when it was trading at $0.75, but it has been showing good momentum lately as its upcoming PMD Phase 3 trial and its Zyprexa weight gain benefit are potential catalysts . Also, Alta Partners disclosed yesterday that it has taken a 10.8% stake. Any biotech stock trading below $3 is speculative, but in light of these recent developments and strong momentum, we wanted to put this one on your radar . Mkt cap $99 mln, float 12.8 mln, avg vol 99K. (PROFX)


A

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is it time to give up on the Uranium play? These stocks have been getting killed lately.

A said...

Is it time to give up on the Uranium play?

According to Jim Dines, this is a gift buying opportunity in the uraniums.

Anonymous said...

Alan,
We've (I) been missing your Angela musings over at the GTF!

What's up???

Skipper

A said...

Skipper, I miss the GTF, but there was something about paying $199 a year to post that rubbed me the wrong way, a total rip-off is more like it. Heck, the newsletter including the forum was only $299 and it was only $199 if you asked nicely. Someone in marketing over there had their heads up their ass. DIdn't care to join them.

A