Sector movers: Hikma weighs on pharma sector

17th Mar 2010 11:40

Hikma Pharmaceuticals is weighing on the pharmaceutical sector even after it reported a 33% increase in 2009 operating profit and said it was confident of continuing growth.Broker Panmure Gordon was predicting yesterday that results from Hikma would be ahead of market expectations, so the in-line with consensus performance from the generic drugs producer came as a disappointment.Seeing Machines, which makes a system that takes screen shots of drivers' faces to detect drowsiness, is leading the technology hardware and equipment sector higher. It announced today that it has won its biggest deal with the mining industry so far, selling the system, the Driver State Sensor (DSS) computer vision product suite, to BHP Billiton.Top performing sectors so far todayMining 23,561.55 +1.96%Forestry & Paper 5,225.19 +1.80%Industrial Metals & Mining 6,049.68 +1.67%Technology Hardware & Equipment 419.13 +1.63%Travel & Leisure 4,654.08 +1.39%Bottom performing sectors so far todayPharmaceuticals & Biotechnology 8,675.90 -0.48%Fixed Line Telecommunications 1,856.60 -0.42%Electricity 6,493.26 -0.40%Insurance (non-life) 1,369.92 -0.34%Construction & Materials 3,557.18 -0.27