Oz Biotechs Up 88% So Far This Year

This story features MESOBLAST LIMITED, and other companies. For more info SHARE ANALYSIS: MSB

The company is included in ASX300 and ALL-ORDS

By Rudi Filapek-Vandyck

The March-April rally that is holding up well in May has been supportive for all assets and equities leveraged to investor risk appetite. No surprise thus, Southern Cross Equities analyst Stuart Roberts, once upon a blue Monday one of the leading commentators in the biotech sphere in Australia, reports this morning Australia’s biotechnology sector has enjoyed a welcome come back in 2009.

Roberts may have given up on sherishing biotech minnows as his only day-to-day focus, he nevertheless has kept the Southern Cross Australian Biotechnology Index alive. This index is still a far cry from the 2000 level reached in 2003 (that long ago already?), and equally the 1600 level last seen in mid-2007 is still a long way off, but biotech stocks, reports Roberts, have so far risen 88% this year, pushing the index back to 667 points.

Roberts reports he’s still keeping an eye on some promising constituents of the index, such as Mesoblast ((MSB)) and Pharmaxis ((PXS)) but he’s quick to add these stocks come with a “highly speculative” tag.

The Southern Cross Equities Australian Biotechnology Index is an equally weighted index of 96 small biotech stocks listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.

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