NASDAQ® Re-Ranks Biotechnology Index

    By Mark Chael --

The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. recently announced that as part of its semi-annual re-ranking of the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index® (NBI), thirteen securities have been added to the index, while four have been dropped.  All of the securities on the NBI are classified as biotech or pharma according to the Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB).

In addition to the proper ICB classification, the NBI securities must also meet other criteria, including market value, average daily share volume, listing on the NASDAQ Global Market or NASDAQ Global Select Market, and "seasoning as a public company."  The last criteria allows the decision-makers at The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. a good deal of latitude in choosing companies for inclusion or exclusion.

The companies recently added to the NBI are:

• Akorn, Inc.
• Alexza Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
• BioMimetic Therapeutics, Inc.
• CombinatoRx, Inc.
• DRAXIS Health, Inc.
• Dynavax Technologies Corp.
• GenVec, Inc.
• Maxygen, Inc.
• Medivation, Inc.
• Osiris Therapeutics, Inc.
• Sangamo BioSciences, Inc.
• Vanda Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
• Warner Chilcott Ltd.

While the companies recently removed from the NBI are:

• Curis, Inc.
• Gene Logic, Inc.
• Inhibitex, Inc.
• Threshold Pharmaceuticals, Inc.