Ligand's Insider Buys Continue

By M.E.Garza

Wednesday, 02 November 2011 06:19

Shares of Ligand Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: LGND) have continued to trend higher- along its 50-day moving average- since we first reported in August that insider buying in the stock was on the rise.

Shares were trading at approximately $12 per share at the time of that report and rose to a 52 Week-High of $16.24. Shares are currently trading at -6.53 % from that high point at around $15 per hare. Insider buying in the stock continued to come in at a steady pace during the entire month of October, even as the stock dipped slightly.

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There are several upcoming Trade Catalysts listed in our FDA calendar and Worldwide Regulatory Tracker, but perhaps none more key than this one: Ligand expects to report the Captisol-enabled melphalan full results of an ongoing Phase II study in the current (fourth) quarter of 2011. A pivotal Phase III study is targeted to begin by early 2012 and is designed to enroll approximately 60 patients. Ligand anticipates the planned timing of study completion to allow for a mid-2013 NDA submission. This event was tracked from an announcement made by the company in late June. We are expecting several other catalysts- including two product market launches- to take place in 2012.

Ligand announced recently that it will host a panel discussion in San Francisco, on Monday, November 7, 2011 to review and discuss the Promacta Phase III ENABLE 1 study results.

New SEC filings show that just days ago, BVF Partners LP picked up more shares ($83,751 worth) at an average price of $13.91 per share. Insider filings show that the firm has aggressively increased the number of shares they own from 362K to over 1.7M during the last month.

Biotechnology Value Fund Partners LP (BVF Partners LP) is a private investment partnership founded in 1993 by President and Portfolio Manager Mark Lampert. Lampert was once Vice President at Oppenheimer & Co. where he created various biotechnology investment vehicles. Mr. Lampert also founded Biotechnology Royalty Corp, which pooled university patent royalties, prior to joining Oppenheimer. The firm manages the Biotechnology Value Fund which pursues activist investment strategies in biotechnology equities.

We reported in October that this same fund had increased their shares in Neurocrine Biosciences (Nasdaq: NBIX). Neurocrine shares surged over 16% on Tuesday and closed at $7.28.

The La Jolla, California based Ligand Pharmaceuticals is operating with a business model that is assembling a large and diverse portfolio of current and near-term commercial revenue generating assets to assist the long-term financial growth of the company.

Ligand has collaborations with GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK), Merck (NYSE: MRK), The Medicines Company (Nasdaq:MDCO), Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY), King Pharmaceuticals Inc, Cephalon Inc, and others. Their partnered and unpartnered pipelines can be seen at: http://www.ligand.com/pipeline. Ligand has also announced two new licensing agreements during the past month.

Disclosure: None

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