3 Humongous Health-Care Stocks This Week

A lot of health-care stocks took a beating this week. Not all of them, though.Here are the three most humongous health-care stocks over the week ending April 11, 2014.

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Shares of the biopharmaceutical firm soared 22% this week.

Agios Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: AGIO)

Source: Yahoo! Finance

• Positive phase 1 preliminary data was announced for cancer drug AG-221.

• Agios reported AG-221 was well tolerated but with two possible drug-related severe adverse events.

• Clinical results were promising, with multiple complete remissions in patients with blood cancer.

• Celgene (Nasdaq: CELG) stands as another winner, as AG-221 is part of a collaboration established between the big biotech and Agios in 2010.

Why Agios shares took off

Shares of the biotech climbed 18% higher for the week.

Questcor Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: QCOR)

Source: Yahoo! Finance

• Specialty pharmaceutical company Mallinckrodt (NYSE: MNK) is acquiring Questcor.

• Shareholders will receive $30 in cash and 0.897 Mallinckrodt shares for each Questcor share they own.

• The deal represents a 27% premium over Questcor’s closing price before the announcement.

Why Questcor shot up

Shares of the clinical-stage biotech jumped nearly 18% this week.

Bio-Path Holdings (Nasdaq: BPTH)

Source: Yahoo! Finance

• No big announcements this week from Bio-Path.

• The biotech looks to be rebounding from a sell-off that started in late February.

• Bio-Path’s Liposomal Grb-2 is in phase 1 clinical studies targeting several forms of leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome.

Why Bio-Path boomed

• Questcor won’t shoot up significantly, since the price of the acquisition by Mallinckrodt is set.

• Bio-Path Holdings could continue its rebound, but major new developments are still in the future.

• Agios’ early-stage results for AG-221 show considerable promise .

• The partnership with Celgene gives Agios a leg up in continued development of the blood cancer drug.

• A possibility also exists that Celgene could use some of its $5.6 billion in cash and short-term investments to scoop up Agios down the road.

Best pick to stay humongous?

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Find out which stock The Motley Fool’s chief investment officer selected as the top pick for

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