una buona news x il futuro di xoma,,,
UPDATE - Serono wins EU green light for Raptiva, shares up
Thursday June 24, 11:02 am ET
By Jon Cox and Ben Hirschler
(Adds fund manager, updates shares)
ZURICH/LONDON, June 24 (Reuters) - Serono (SEO.VX) won key backing for a drug on Thursday, opening the door for up to $400 million in fresh revenue and reducing what is seen as the Swiss firm's over-reliance on multiple sclerosis treatment Rebif.
Stock in Europe's biggest biotechnology group rose by up to two percent after European experts gave its psoriasis drug Raptiva the green light for treatment of the sometimes debilitating skin disease, a new therapeutic area for the company.
"This is very positive. The panel is the last step for approval and it wasn't quite clear whether they would get it," said Orun Palit, a fund manager with AIG Private Bank, which holds Serono.
Serono stock rose 1.4 percent to 799 Swiss francs by 1500 GMT, outpacing the European healthcare sector (Zurich:^SXDP - News) which was 0.4 percent lower. It has fallen some 10 percent this year and underperformed the sector on concerns about competition to its flagship product Rebif.
"Sentiment in the company has been quite bad. This will help them," said Ulrich Steiner, a fund manager with Bank Leu, who owns the stock and sees it attractively valued at current levels.
The London-based European Medicines Agency said its panel of experts had recommended Raptiva as a treatment for moderate to severe chronic plaque psoriasis after other therapies failed.
Recommendations from the agency's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use are normally endorsed by the European Commission within 90 days.
Serono reiterated peak sales of Raptiva could reach up to $400 million annually and be at least $250 million. It said it expected final European marketing authorisation in the third quarter and the product's launch in EU countries shortly after.
Some analysts have said Serono's top-end forecast was overly optimistic but Leu's Steiner said peak sales between $350 million and $400 million was not unrealistic.
WEAN OFF REBIF
Raptiva is licensed outside the United States and Japan from Genentech (NYSE

NA - News). Management hopes it will allow it to reduce heavy reliance on Rebif, which accounted for a half of the firm's $557 million first-quarter revenues.
"Now they can sell the drug in Europe and add it to their portfolio and it gets them away from the Rebif story," said AIG's Palit, who said he would add to his existing position in the stock as this was the trigger for fresh buyers.
Raptiva is an antibody engineered to inhibit the binding of immune system cells to other cells, which heads off the scaly patches of inflamed skin that can make severe cases of psoriasis debilitating.
The drug has already been approved in Switzerland and the United States, where Genentech maintains the U.S. marketing rights along with its partner XOMA (NasdaqNM:XOMA - News).
But there had been concerns that EU regulators might take a tougher line on approval.
Worries about Raptiva's position in Europe increased when regulators asked rival Biogen Idec (NasdaqNM:BIIB - News) for additional clinical data for its competing drug Amevive, even though it was already approved in the United States.
"The CHMP's positive opinion is very good news for people with psoriasis as Raptiva can offer an effective therapy to those whose needs are not met by current treatment," said Serono Chief Executive Ernesto Bertarelli.