It's Christmas. Santa is rallying Wall Street. How about a happy story with Pfizer
ImmuCell
Santa (Pfizer) is interested in finding a way to treat mastitis, which is inflammation of a cow's udder. When using treatments approved by the Food and Drug Administration, milk from treated cows must be discarded for a period during and after treatment. Mast Out has the potential to eliminate this requirement -- leaving plenty of milk to go with Santa's cookies.
It might make Santa chuckle to think of a "placebo-controlled, blinded, multi-farm study" with dairy cows, but there were 139 lucky ladies that participated. In January, ImmuCell announced "statistically significant cure rates." It must have been the talk of barns all over the country that night. Well, maybe not. Efficacy trials are expected to begin in the first half of 2005, with FDA approval the ultimate goal.
ImmuCell, with $3.5 million in sales, is a Lilliputian when compared with the $529.7 million in revenue at competitor IDEXX Labs
The market loved today's news and sent ImmuCell's stock up over 100% -- to an all-time high. Unfortunately, this Santa story is more future froth than near-term presents. Product sales for Mast Out, if it is ever approved by the FDA, are not expected until 2007. Mast Out is a big part of ImmuCell's future, but it is probably too early to get excited about milking this opportunity.
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Fool contributor W.D. Crotty does not own stock in any of the companies mentioned.