If you were wondering exactly what a bird flu program could do to a biotech's stock, check out this report from USA Today. It includes a list of drug developers that could play a role in fighting bird flu and their stock fluctuations so far this year. They include BioCryst (up 14.4 percent), Carrington Labs (up 44 percent), Alnylam (up 29 percent) and Novavax (up 95 percent). Analysts have been putting together various bird flu strategies for investors that includes weighting investments toward drug companies and away from the kind of travel outfits likely to get hammered if, and this is a big if, a human pandemic breaks out. Call it the globalization of the fear factor. Any outbreak of a human-to-human avian flu will likely trigger an economic tsunami that can be far more devastating than anything terrorists could dream up. For the record: Just about every prominent virologist will only say that a pandemic is a possibility.
- read the article from USA Today
PLUS: Any human pandemic, of course, is predicated on a genetic mutation of the virus. New research indicates that right now the virus doesn't easily connect to cells in the nose, throat and upper respiratory tract. The virus needs to get deep into the lungs to infect someone, which is why close exposure to infected birds has been the key characteristic of the people who have been affected so far. Common human flu viruses can swiftly attach themselves to more easily accessible cells. A mutation, of course, could change all of that. Article