Australian biotech market watch 24/07/09

This morning saw a lively jump in the All Ordinaries care of a bumper day in the US markets and growing optimism that the market has reached bottom and is starting to claw its way back up again. As of 4pm this afternoon, the All Ords were at 4,094, up 0.5% for the day.

That said, the health indices took a concerted dive below the 7,700 mark to 7,633, down 1%, beaten out only by IT stocks as today's biggest losers.

Amongst the biggest fallers was Ansell (ASX:ANN), dropping 13c to $8.49, CathRX (ASX:CXD), down 11.5% to 31c, Healthscope (ASX:HSP), which dropped 7c to $4.23.

Dental device manufacturer, SDI (ASX:SDI) took at 13% fall to $0.195, and CSL (ASX:CSL) shed 61c to $29.37 after several weeks of fluctuating prices.

Primary Health Care (ASX:PRY) has been in the news quite a bit recently, with the consumer watchdog making noises about investigating billing practices as well as news today that eight GPs turned their backs on a Primary-run medical centre in Geelong. Primary is down 6c to $5.40.

It wasn't all bad new though. Sirtex (ASX:SRX) continued its strong performance, gaining another 7c to $4.37 - impressive considering it was $3.56 this time last month.

Xenotransplantation specialists, Living Cell Technologies, jumped over 11% to $0.19 after a string of announcements about new clinical trials set to take place in New Zealand of its diabetes treatment using transplanted pig cells.

The strong demand for GlaxoSmithKlein's anti-influenza drug, Relenza, has also had a positive impact on Biota Holdings (ASX:BTA), which receives royalties on the drug. Biota gained 6.35% to $1.87.

A good day was also had by Cochlear (ASX:COH), up 2.5% to $56.10. A similar gain was seen by Blackmores (ASX:BKL), up 42c to $15.85.