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Although "Margie" likely believes that I am the incarnation of evil, and not objective, I'd like to believe otherwise (at least I hope I'm not the AntiChrist!). Anyway, I'm not new to AGPH. It was a decent holding in the mutual fund and small cap accounts that I co-managed in 1991. We sold it in 1992. (We missed the intermediate term top in '91). AGPH's use of x-ray crystallography is quite a good idea. It is great to know the structure of your target. However, AGPH's use of the term "rational drug design" is misleading, because that implies that firms not using their approach are involved in "irrational drug design", which is nonsense. AGPH's acquisition is actually a positive for them. For better or worse, there will be more shares outstanding when/if? they ever start making money, though. Over the past 2-3 years, the importance of combinatorial chemistry is drug development has been firmly established. Similar to the hype over the term "rational drug design" by AGPH, many firms touted the "combinatorial chemistry" term with hopes that this alone would get investors excited and allow them to sell stock at bizarre valuations. Fact - any decent drug discovery company has internal combinatorial chemistry capabilities and will use various methodologies to determine the structure of the target(s) of interest. Over the past year or so, the shortcomings of AGPH's (pre-Alanex) approach have surfaced. You won't read about it in the "buy" reports of various analysts, though. The issue is twofold - 1. - Does structure determine function, or is it the other way around? and 2. Given the power of combinatorial chemistry with the ability to sort through (see the current issue of Scientific American for a good introduction) what is created, is the process of determining structure the proper first step? In a perfect world, you'd know the structure of the target instantly, but often what you think may be the target might be not be.- I'm just suggesting stuff for you to ponder, over a brandy perhaps. You might want to get an investor relations package from a company called Arquele. They seem to have a very interesting approach that some believe incorporates the best of both worlds - "rational drug design" + combinatorial chemistry. The notion of a single target for many diseases itself is incorrect. Illness involves chemical cascades, which in turn affect subsystems within the body. As is no surprise, besides structure, it is the relationship of receptors to everything else that determines function. The old AGPH approach assumed this relationship was linear, which is not the case. Regarding AGPH, it is my belief that the stock is overvalued, I make no apologies for that. In addition, before I go (for now), I ask you to ponder the FDA letter to AGPH. If AGPH's drug is so wonderful, why did AGPH have to overstep the lines? 3 weeks ago, I asked an analyst at one of the major firms recommending AGPH about AGPH overstating claims, based on choice of assay. The individual on the other end of the phone said they'd get back to me. Well, I guess the FDA answered my question. As for why I haven't posted the A-Z AGPH analysis, the answer is that it isn't the most important thing on my "list of things to do", but I hope to do so in the future. |
