--- In gntainvestors@y..., Y_Meeh <no_reply@y...> wrote:
<<Steve, I'm sure I speak for most of the readers of this board when
I say I'd love to hear your thoughts on Genta's product pipeline.
Should it use its cash to acquire another company with a promising
cancer treatment? Given the fact that biotechs are very cheap right
now, and that Genta has a big gap in its pipeline between the
projected launch of Genasense and ganite for NHL and the launch of
the next major product (with Androgenics, oral gallium, and decoy
aptamers unlikely to begin clinical development until 2003), that
might make sense. On the other hand, perhaps Genta should hold onto
to its cash until Genasense's fate is clearer, since if it fizzles
not much more in the way of milestones will come in. In any event,
given the dispiriting events of the past week, a non-Genasense
discussion might be a welcome change for awhile.>>
I'd like to throw my two cents in to lead this discussion off. While
I have discussed it privately with many, I have not posted my views
about the possibility of Genta acquiring other companies and/or
technologies. RW has stated that he wants to build Genta into an
oncology company. While he's off to a good start with our four
platforms, there are many other platforms that can be acquired. I
also believe that Genta would not have to use it's cash to accomplish
any acquisitions. It's current and expected cash can be used to
continue funding our existing programs as well as the further
development of those that we can acquire.
I've previously explained that biotechs fund their R&D through equity
placements. We are in a market environment that's made it nearly
impossible for many companies to raise funds to continue their
programs. The share prices and market caps of many companies are too
low to allow them to make equity placements and they are running out
of R&D funds. What can they do? I believe many will be forced to
either sell off platforms and/or drugs or be forced to sell or merge
the company. With cash in the bank and more expected, a low burn
rate, a top flight drug development team and a developing sales force
under Bruce Williams' direction, I think that Genta is in a position
to take capitalize on some oncology acquisitions. IMO those
acquisitions would probably take the form of entire company mergers
rather than individual drugs or pipelines. The only thing that's
missing is a proper share price for Genta and I've sent a few e-mails
to management and the BOD, over the past few weeks, with my thoughts
on how to cure that. While I won't post them here yet, my thoughts
involve a few fairly simple steps that can break the share price out
to where it belongs.
There has been a lot of discussion about the various proxy items that
deal with the revision of the option structure and the expansion of
the authorized shares by 25M. I'm confident that the options and the
25M shares are unrelated. IMO, the 25M shares can/will be used for
acquisitions. Just like Genta had competition for it's marketing
partner, IMO Genta will have competition for merger partners as there
is no shortage of companies feeling both market and cash pressures.
There are many more aspects to what I'm opining, but I thought that
I'd just throw this out on the table to get the discussion started.
Bill |
