Thanks a lot for the info and the speculation.
Right. I remember now 12 weeks. Seemed pretty quick to me. As for when the first patient was enrolled, I believed the announced the actual beginning of the trials at that time, didn't they?
>>I'm still trying to find out the status of the leptin deal(s), which
if signed would also shore up a price jump. <<
Great please let us know what you can in this regard if you discover anything. The delay of this deal has IMO been a major glitch for the company. They have lost some credibility. An actual deal would regain it for them. At this point many observers, myself included, are skeptical about the deal. That skepticism is then extended to other aspects of the company.
As far as the diabetes deal, they will indeed need a large, up front payment to buy out ALRI. Such deals are normally very rare for development stage bios. So I worry that they will not get enough up front, and they are under time pressure. Your reasoning that they would not have expedited ALRI spending unless they were sure of coming up with the money makes sense. But I would like something a lot more solid. Perhaps such a deal will be larger and include not just targretin but some of the rexinoids you mention.
>>LGND has a huge potential and when the street begins to see big deals or FDA approvals, they will provide tremendous price support. LGND's pipeline and underlying technology put many of the big boys to shame.<<
Yes, but FDA approval is a long ways away and panretin is not a slamdunk. For the next year or so, its the deals. If anything goes wrong with the diabetes deal (like it did with the leptin deal) and there are significant delays, the stock IMO could take a big hit. Of course there are always these risks with development stage bios. Right now I am personally in a very vulnerable financial position given the poor performance of CYTO. Otherwise, I could afford to be more patient with LGND, which I don't doubt will be a huge success long term.
Still I think your target of 30 by year end is too high, altho I think the low 20s is possible IF (and IMO, its a big IF) every things goes smoothly and there is 1. a leptin deal; 2. a diabetes deal; 3. good panretin P3s and an NDA filing and 4. good targretin P3s and an NDA filing (but that is 1Q 98, no?) |
