The first example, dare I say it,
Famoxin, is to be taken through
phase I by Genset in the fourth
quarter of this year...and then Genset
is looking for 25M upfront, and a
royalty rate of 11-13%...a pharma
takes it the rest of the way.
twst.com
The CFO did the presentation. He sounds
young, not particularly polished (breathless)
but you cant fault eager and energetic.
His talk is in stark contrast to the one Pernet
gave at H&Q, which was lighter on the facts,
but exceedingly confident--Pernet is very
well spoken and I enjoyed that talk so much
I bought more shares. Boy did that backfire.
Anyway, the CFO, John Varian, also dropped
Cohen's name a number of times--I suppose
this fella is a bit like a French counterpart
to our genome guys, Venter and Collins. Heh,
if Cohen were a snazzy American, maybe he'd
be rich like Venter by now.
genxy.com
Other tidbits...still getting that "2000 secreted
protein library" from which they are 'mining for
the next drugs'.
Lessee, early in the presentation Varian pointed
to their proprietary five prime technology. Has
something to do with faster identification of the
beginning and end of the actual gene sequence.
He also suggested what I surmised awhile ago--
that they are using their own sequence data to
fill in gaps and errors in the Celera data. That
may be overstating it--I'm sure their own sequence
data is useful to a degree, but what Varian really
stressed was the value of their patient samples.
I don't know how you get from tissue samples to
sequence, maybe sample>SNP>map>sequence, whatever.
Supposedly Genset is going to release a CNS map
built around the patient samples in two or three
years--sell it to a pharma I think he said, but
don't quote me, ha!
If working for pharma was such a poor business model,
then they should keep the map for themselves. What they
should do is just merge with a biotech over here that
has deep pockets. I'll pick Genentech. However, there
was not even the slightest suggestion that Genset is
going to get taken out.
Back to my notes...
He also said something about biostatistics being a
key area with value for Genset. I sorta doubt now that
there is a Rosetta hiding in Genset...maybe half a
RSTA? Sigh.
I did not get a sense that they are finalizing the sale
of the Oligo division immediately--he said something to
the effect that we should watch for some news soon,
geeze, maybe they decided to keep it: Not a fun game,
what will please Mr. Market today?! Genset is out
of phase with what pushes the right buttons on Wall
Street.
I do feel pretty confident that if I hold Genset three
years I will see a return on my investment. If I were
shopping today for a company like Genset, I might wait
and see if they are indeed able to raise cash with
the Oliogo sale.
By the way, Genset was recently reduced to a blurb
in the back of Nature magazine on the Movers page:
Denis Ravel, former head of the Metabolism Dept. of
Servier has joined Genset. The paragraph also mentioned
the "void" created when Bernard Bihain left for Valigen.
Okay, what else to I have scrawled here--
mentioned Lodish of course and something about
a specialzed assay for type II diabetes work.
cns...five key diseases they are working in--
18-24 months...then some sort of a partnership
a couple years out. That may have had to do with
a CNS genome SNP map.
Patents...some should show their value 2-3 years.
Well, I guess I can wait. A fancy pants trader
would say I should take my money out of Genset
and put it into something that is moving up. But
I'll hang in there.
Thanks to Tuck for the link to the presentations. |
