Wilder,
Trust me, I'm staying away from MCLS at this point. Their excuse for deal delays had to do with consolidation in the pharma industry. Now they say that said consolidation has in fact caused a reduction in outsourcing. This is a negative change in fundamentals now, not just a delay. A munch would indeed probably be a Trega for the reasons we all know: MCLS announced deals, but none with much leverage. All this is mostly priced in now, and the company has responded with layoffs to get its little pop back over $1. Thus I was thinking MCLS becomes a little purer crystallography play and thought I'd do a quick update looking for beef there. That might add more premium to a munch. We can probably wait and see how the NBIX deal progresses; this is what will make or break them in crystallography. FWIW, MCLS won't have much burn, and should it get close to cash -- i.e. a half dollar -- it might warrant a look for a good % bounce. I believe it's close already if you throw in the replacement cost of their building, which they own.
It will be interesting to see what DPII says about this stuff in the next few weeks. It's already close to cash, and it fessed up sooner than MCLS, FWIW. To say something almost on topic aside from crystallography, it will also be interesting to see how outsourcing of proteomics goes. Several companies have built "proteomics centers" for outsourced contract work. The Mass Spec folks say they're selling to proteomics players strongly, so will the proteomics centers also hold up?
Cheers, Tuck |
