Australian biotech market today 19.03.09

The Big Three dragged the pharma and biotech index on an otherwise good day for the All Ordinaries at 3pm today.

Cochlear, CSL and Resmed are all down today, Cochlear (ASX:COH) by 2.6 per cent and CSL (ASX:CSL) by almost six per cent after substantial shareholder Fidelity Investments sold a large parcel of shares.

Resmed (ASX:RMD) is down 2.9 per cent to just over $5.

Genera Biosystems (ASX:GBI) was up for the second day in a row, now trading at 32c, as was Novogen (ASX:NRT), which has released more detail about the mode of action of its anti-cancer compound NV-128. It rose almost 10c to 51c.

Starpharma (ASX:SPL) is up on interim data from a small clinical trial, while pSivida (ASX:PVA)had another 9c gain to trade over a dollar.

ChemGenex (ASX:CXS) was down 7c on very small volumes, IDT (ASX:IDT) was down 8c and Cellestis (ASX:CST) down 7c.

Acrux (ASX:ACR) was down a touch, as was Avexa (ASX:AVX) and Pharmaxis (ASX:PXS).