Subject: Investors Snap Up Biotech Shares 
Date: Published: 11/12/91 (59 lines)
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

    OTC Focus:
    Composite Index Rises to Another Record
    As Investors Snap Up Biotech Shares
    ----
    By Anne Newman
    Staff Reporter of the Wall Street Journal

    NEW YORK -- Over-the-counter stocks hit their third
 consecutive record in subdued Veterans Day trading as
 investors continued to pour money into biotechnology stocks.
    Immune Response jumped 3 1/4 to 60 3/4, Centocor vaulted 4
 1/2 to 49 1/4, Immunex leaped 4 1/2 to 57 3/4, Synergen
 climbed 2 5/8 to 68, and Amgen gained 1 1/2 to 59.
    Their rise helped lift the Nasdaq Composite Index to yet
 another high of 550.71, up 2.63 for a 0.48% gain.  Advancing
 stocks continued to outweigh decliners, 1,039 to 947, as
 volume fell to a quiet 153.6 million shares from 211.4
 million shares Friday.
    Highflying Immune Response, which has soared more than 21
 times its year-end close of 2 7/8, climbed yet again in
 advance of a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel
 meeting today to discuss certain yardsticks for approving
 AIDS-related vaccines.  But Merrill Lynch biotechnology
 analyst Stuart Weisbrod warned in an interview that the
 stock's astounding rise leaves the development company with
 little margin for error.
    Immune Response is developing a vaccine for patients who
 test positive for the HIV that causes AIDS.  Word of an FDA
 meeting to discuss criteria for approving such vaccines first
 drove shares of the Carlsbad, Calif., company sharply higher
 nearly two weeks ago.
    In an interview, Immune Response's chief executive officer
 and president, James B. Glavin, played down the importance of
 the meeting, and attributed yesterday's jump in the stock to
 general enthusiasm for biotech shares.  The meeting, he
 explained, is more of a data-gathering workshop among a
 number of participants who will discuss certain criteria for
 approving AIDS-related vaccines, rather than a meeting where
 final recommendations will be made.  Immune Response just
 entered a final phase of tests on humans that is expected to
 last a year, and isn't expected to have any product sales
 until at least 1993.
    But Merrill Lynch's Mr. Weisbrod cautioned that investors
 already seem to be anticipating that the company's vaccine
 will work, although it still has another crucial round of
 testing to go.  If Immune Response does have a successful,
 early-stage vaccine, he said, "then the stock is cheap."  But
 if it doesn't work, he cautioned, "this stock could go to
 10."  Elsewhere among biotechnology shares, he attributed
 sharp price moves to slow trading, which often exacerbates
 stock-price moves.

[This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the
 personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the
 hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering
 from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.]