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Biotech / Medical : AVIGEN(avgn)

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To: scaram(o)uche who wrote (200)	5/20/2002 5:54:36 PM
From: JMarcus	Read Replies (2) of 228

I attended the annual meeting today. Short and upbeat. At the ASH meeting in December they will announce the results of the Phase I/II Coagulin B study. I expect that will be a big driver for the stock price, one way or the other. They are continuing to study the issue of vector DNA fragments in seminal fluid, but he had nothing to report about interim findings. After the meeting John Monahan told me about the exciting monkey results from the parkinson's therapeutic AAV vector. He said they have a before-and-after video (which they don't show at meetings or road shows because of fear of the Animal Rights Lobby) of a monkey that shows very striking efficacy. Before being treated with the vector the monkey can hardly master the task of reaching for a peanut, grabbing it, and transporting it to his mouth. After treatment, the monkey performs the task almost as proficiently as a disease-free monkey would. They are hoping to file the IND in 2003. He was also excited about the Congestive Heart Failure vector in the pipeline. AAV vectors are particularly effective in muscle tissue, so the heart is a good candidate for gene therapy using AAV vectors. I need to check my notes for the name of the enzyme for which the AAV vector's DNA would encode. Unlike most of the proteins selected by Avigen for developing vectors with encoding DNA, this particular enzyme has not (and John says it cannot) been administered directly as a therapeutic. The CHF vector is probably at least 1-1/2 years away from an IND. With $141M in available assets (some of which are more liquid than others) and a $30-40M burn rate, they needn't worry about fundraising for another 3 years (unless an opportunity arises). John mentioned the royalty rate Avigen received from Bayer. It is huge -- in the range of 50%. If he can continue to get royalties like than, he'll do more deals. But he won't sell out cheap. Marc

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