Subject: New Focus on AIDS Boosts Health-Care, Biotechnology Stocks
Date: Published: 11/11/91 (40 lines)
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

    New Focus on AIDS
    Boosts Health-Care,
    Biotechnology Stocks

    NEW YORK -- Investors bid up the stocks of health-care
 product manufacturers and biotechnology companies with
 AIDS-related products in their research pipelines, hoping to
 profit from heightened awareness of the disease in the wake
 of basketball star Earvin "Magic" Johnson's announcement that
 he is infected with the virus that causes the fatal disease.
    Carter-Wallace Inc., the leading U. S. maker of condoms,
 soared more than $8 a share after a delayed opening, then
 slipped back to close at $108, up $3.25.
    Immune Response Corp. leaped $3.50 to $57.50 in heavy
 trading.  The San Diego-based company is testing a genetically
 engineered vaccine for patients who have the human
 immuno-deficiency virus that causes AIDS.  The vaccine would
 treat patients before they come down with symptoms of
 acquired immune deficiency syndrome, and some investors say
 it could be on the market in two years.  With Immune Response
 already at lofty levels, biotech investor John Kaweske of
 Denver's Financial Funds said he "enjoyed the ride up" but
 didn't buy any more.
    MedImmune Inc. vaulted $2.25 to $52.75.  The Gaithersburg,
 Md., company has been developing genetically engineered
 products targeted at the AIDS virus.  It recently entered into
 an agreement with Merck & Co. to develop drugs that prevent
 HIV infections.
    ImmunoGen Inc. rose $2.50 to $21.25.  The Cambridge, Mass.,
 company focuses on cancer treatments but recently announced
 it was beginning tests on humans of a product designed to
 treat AIDS-related lymphoma.

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