Walter, Stephanie O'Brien of Marketwatch apparently does not know that David Molowa of Bear Stearns still covers Ligand. Here is the E-Mail that I just sent to sobrien@marketwatch.com:
I read with interest your story on the FDA advisory committee's recommendation for the approval on Targretin (bexarotene) for the treatment of advanced cutaneous T-Cell lymphoma cbs.marketwatch.com , which I assume generated more than the usual amount of E-Mail due to your story's emphasis on the vote against use in early stage disease, as well as the very one-sided comments by Legg Mason's Stephan Loren who currently rates LGND as a HOLD.
An E-Mail attributed to you was posted on the Yahoo board messages.yahoo.com and if indeed you did send out that letter, I believe that a correction is in order.
I follow Ligand quite closely (I formed it's parent company, Progenx in 1987) and I believe that Sell Side coverage has remained fairly steady at 5, although there have been a few changes over they years. I posted what I believe to be coverage as of today
messages.yahoo.com
Stephan Loren of Legg Mason and Richard van den Broek of Hambrecht & Quist were quoted in wire stories after the approval rec.
David Molowa of Bear Stearns reiterated his BUY (their highest rating) the day following approval.
I assume that Mike King of BancBoston Robertson Stephans and David Williams of Greenwhich Global are still covering LGND.
Firms that have covered LGND in the past include Merrill Lynch, Raymond James, and Lehman Brothers, but when one drops coverage, another picks them up, so LGND has had 5 brokers covering them pretty steadily for the past several years (the ones initiating coverage most recently have been Greenwhich Global and Legg Mason).
As far as I know, since LGND has gone public in 1992, only one brokerage firm has downgraded LGND twice, and that has been Stephan Loren at Legg Mason, who was the sole source of quotes in your article. His "laundrey list" of side effects is rather short and mild, especially for an anti cancer medication, and the side affects unique to cutaneous T-cell lymhoma patients, was published in the New England Journal of Medicine ncbi.nlm.nih.gov (this side effect was rarely seen in patients who did not have CTCL) on April 8 and has been presented at scientic meetings for well over a year.
As far as I know, there was nothing presented at the ODAC panel review that would diminish Ligand's views on off label use of Targretin to treat advanced breast cancer and this was reiterated in yesterday's press release on their Journal of National Cancer Institute publication on the use of Targretin to treat Tamoxifen resistant breast cancer in an animal model businesswire.com |
