US STOCKS-Futures climb after two-week drop

* Earnings season begins this week

* NPS Pharma climbs in premarket; to be acquired by Shire

* Foundation Medicine jumps; Roche to take majority stake

* Futures up: Dow 85 pts, S&P 10.25 pts, Nasdaq 21 pts

By Chuck Mikolajczak

NEW YORK, Jan 12 (Reuters) – Dow Futures rose on Monday, after a two-day decline pushed the S&P 500 back into negative territory for the year, as investors anticipated the start of the corporate earnings season.

* U.S. stocks fell on Friday after the December jobs report painted a mixed picture of the economy, giving the benchmark S&P index its second straight weekly decline. Since hitting a record high on Dec. 29, the index has fallen 2.2 percent on concerns about global growth and falling oil prices.

* Fourth-quarter earnings are expected to grow by 4 percent over the year-ago period, according to Thomson Reuters data.

* Alcoa is scheduled to post quarterly earnings after the closing bell, with financials JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup due to report later in the week. Dow component Intel Corp is expected to post earnings on Thursday.

* NPS Pharmaceuticals jumped 8.7 percent to $ 45.55 in premarket trading after Shire Plc agreed to acquire the company for $ 5.2 billion. U.S.-listed shares of Shire fell 1.6 percent to $ 214.

* Foundation Medicine surged 106.1 percent to $ 49.31 after Roche Holding agreed to take a majority stake in the company for up to $ 1.18 billion.

* Johnson & Johnson boosted its research efforts in Alzheimer’s by striking a deal potentially worth up to $ 509 million with unlisted Swiss biotech firm AC Immune to develop so-called anti-tau vaccines.

* Bristol-Myers Squibb climbed 5.6 percent to $ 63.68 in premarket trade after the company said the independent data monitoring committee concluded that a late stage study evaluating its Opdivo lung cancer drug met its endpoint.

Futures snapshot at 7:24 a.m.:

* S&P 500 e-minis were up 10.25 points, or 0.5 percent, with 111,160 contracts changing hands.

* Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 21 points, or 0.5 percent, in volume of 20,029 contracts.

* Dow e-minis were up 85 points, or 0.48 percent, with 20,211 contracts changing hands.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Bernadette Baum)