Pharma Stocks in News: La Jolla Pharmaceutical Co. (NASDAQ:LJPC), Geron Corporation (NASDAQ:GERN), Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARNA),

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By Henry Owen on July 17, 2014 BioPharma

The shares of La Jolla Pharmaceutical Co. (NASDAQ:LJPC) surged by 17.10 percent and reached the value of $12.70. On July 15, the company reported positive results for its LJPC-1010 in NASH (non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis). A derivative of galecrin-3’s carbohydrate inhibitor, GCS-100, LJPC-1010 has shown positive performance in the disease of chronic kidney during its phase 2 trials.

Research and Development Vice President at La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company, James Rolke, said that NASH occurs in those people who do not drink or if they do, they consume very little amount of alcohol. According to James Rolke, NASH disease is similar to that of liver disease, which alcoholic suffers from. He further stated that LJPC-1010 was a GCS-100’s tailored form and it was the only effective way to treat the disease of NASH.

In the last trading session, La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company (NASDAQ:LJPC) opened its stocks at $13.06 and closed at $12.09. The intraday range for the company was recorded to be from $11.70 to $13.51. As far as the 52 week high and low figures are concerned, the numbers are reported to be around $19.50 and $2.78 respectively. La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company has a market capitalization of $95.11 million with a 34 percent institutional ownership.

Coming to Geron Corporation (NASDAQ:GERN), on June 12, the company announced that U.S. FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has lifted off the hold on Myelofibrosis IST’ clinical trials. In March, FDA put a partial hold on Myelofibrosis IST trials, due to the safety concerns raised by hepatotoxicity’s identification in the pre-clinical trials. To get the hold lifted off, Dr. Ayalew Tefferi provided reports and information to reverse hepatotoxicity in all the patients who received a dose of imestelstat during the trials. After reviewing the reports, FDA lifted off the hold from Myelofibrosis IST trials.

During the last trading day, Geron Corporation (NASDAQ:GERN) started its shares at a price of $3.02 and closed at a price of $2.88, after hitting the highest figures of $3.09. The company has a market capitalization of $457.98 million and a beta of 2.49.

The shares of Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARNA) dropped by 0.97 percent and reached the price of $5.09. On July 10, the company announced that its 200 new contracts of Metabolic Business Unit’s sales representatives of Eisai Inc. have been completed. This completion of BELVIQ® contracts has increased the company’s sales by 50 percent. According to the latest news, the completion of these 200 sales contracts will increase Eisai Inc.’s reach to almost 92,000 physicians in the U.S.

Coming to the stocks, Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARNA), on the last trade day, started its stocks at a price of $5.17 and closed at a price of $4.92, after hitting the highest figures of $5.32. As far as the 52 week high and 52 week low of the company’s stocks are concerned, the figures are reported to be around $7.97 and $4.05 respectively. The company has a total market capitalization of $1.08 billion and its recorded beta is 0.76.