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Biotech / Medical : ABTI Alpha-Beta Technology

ABTI 0.200

+99,900.0%

Jun 17 12:34 PM EST

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To: biowa who wrote (297)	8/2/1997 7:53:00 PM
From: Tom D	of 572

The number of Phase III infections is sufficient to allow statistical significance. I am a part-time parcticing internist and part-time biotechnology consultant. I attended Alpha Beta's breakout session at the Alex Brown Health Care Conference in Baltimore in May '97. One question posed to Spiros was: Could he make any comment about whether or not he knew if there were enough infections in the overall population to enable the possible attainment of statistical significance? His answer was Yes. Of course he had no idea which groups had the infections but the total was definitely large enough to show a significant effect, depending on who got the infections. Overall, I am amazed at how low the market has valued this company. Here is the big picture, as I see it: 1) We've got two Phase II studies from Harvard Medical School published in mainstream peer-reviewed medical journals which show statistical significance, (even though that is not why the studies were designed). 2) Jeffrey Norton, former chief of one of the divisions of the NIH, writes a very positive editorial in the Annals of Surgery. (I happen to know him--he is on the faculty at the Washington University School of Medicine here in St. Louis). He has no fiancial connections to AlphaBeta. He is just one of the best endocrine surgeons in the world 3) The FDA decided that AlphaBeta could combine the two Phase II studies and it would count them as one of the two usually-mandatory Phase III studies needed for approval. So only one large Phase III study is needed. In this context I am surprised at how much quibbling there is about small details of these studies. 4) The mechanism is well-understood. They have identified the receptor and transcription pathways for BetaFectin on neutrophils and monocytes in humans. There are reams of confirming, positive data in animal models. 5) There are no safety issues. 6) The market is enormous when one includes the multiple-drug resistant bacterial infections which plague our hospitals. 7) AlphaBeta made a secondary offering in March of '96 at $14 per share. There hasn't been a shred of negative news (only delays) and here we are 17 months later at $11? I have no idea why one analyst has only estimated the chance of "good data" at 60%. I think it is over 90% and that this is the surest bet one can make in pure biotechnology companies. Perhaps it is part of the overall pessimism about the sector in light of Autoimmune and PLC. But AlphaBeta clearly has superior data compared to those companies. In fact, isn't it surprising that Autoimmune, with widespread advance skepticism in the biotech community, ran up to $18 per share before releasing the Phase III data that many of us expected to be negative? As a clinician, I expect BetaFectin to have as much impact on the practice of medicine as Sonus will. The stock should follow a similar trajectory. TDD

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