I would like to take a look at a Company by the name of SuperGen, ticker symbol SUPG. The company was founded in 1991. It has 17mm shares outstanding.
I have copied the following article and hope I'm not doing anything unethical or illegal by doing this, but it is in the public domain:
News Alert from San Fransisco Business Times
Headline: Biotech blossoms Amgen alum has ingredients to make SuperGen grow
======================================================================
Business Times staff writer
Joe Rubinfeld is waiting - impatiently - for lightning to strike
twice.
Rubinfeld, who helped found biotech industry giant Amgen in 1980,
has San Ramon-based SuperGen Inc. poised to move rapidly into the
top ranks of biotechnology by pursuing an unusual strategy:
licensing its drug candidates from other sources, many of them
already in human clinical trials, rather than developing potential
drugs from scratch.
So far, the 6-year-old company has parlayed that approach into
five anti-cancer drugs that are on the market, with several more in
the offing, including improved versions of current products.
SuperGen founder and CEO Rubinfeld is betting that at least one of
several potential blockbusters in its pipeline will pan out in a big
way - big enough to propel the 38-employee startup into the big
leagues.
Possibilities include its RF-1051 anti-obesity drug, which will
probably target diabetes-related obesity initially, to enhance its
chances of speedy regulatory approval.
Other potentially high-impact drug candidates target pancreatic
cancer and several types of severe anemia associated with kidney
disease and anti-cancer treatments. RFS 2000, an anti-pancreatic
cancer drug acquired last month, already has Orphan Drug Status from
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. If approved, that designation
would give SuperGen a seven-year window of competition-free
opportunity.
"It could be a big, big product for us. It could be another
Taxol," said Rubinfeld, referring to the billion-dollar anti-cancer
drug developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb.
The brash-talking Brooklyn native has not only helped invent one
of the industry's biggest success stories in Amgen, he's also created
or helped champion tremendously successful products in industries as
disparate as pharmaceuticals and detergents. They include the
top-selling antibiotic amoxicillin, which he helped pioneer at
Bristol-Myers, one of the first biodegradable detergents, and a
10-second instant film developer still used by Polaroid.
At SuperGen, Rubinfeld's seemingly magic touch has taken the
startup's common stock to about $18 from $6 a share in its first
year as a public company. And that's come despite little or no
attention from Wall Street analysts, a situation that could change
soon.
"The volume (of stock purchases) has been increasing, which is
indicative of greater awareness of the company," said Gary Davis, a
senior analyst at New York's Jesup & Lamont, which specializes in
small, "underfollowed" health-care, biotech and pharmaceutical
companies.
Among SuperGen's recent moves to strengthen its clinical portfolio
and balance sheet, the company has:
* Added three top pharmaceutical industry executives last month to
its management team, including Medical Director Luigi Lenaz, M.D.,
and Clinical Research Director John Marinaro, who helped
Bristol-Myers launch its hugely successful Taxol anti-cancer drug.
* Obtained a $15.3 million investment from Oracle Chairman and CEO
Larry Ellison, a board member since late July.
* Bought back nearly $8 million in stock from Israel Chemicals
Ltd., its largest stockholder, which had been seeking liquidity by
selling regular chunks of SuperGen stock and thus putting pressure on
the stock's price.
* Closed a self-managed private placement two weeks later, on Aug.
21, that raised nearly $9 million, enough to more than make up for
the Israel Chemicals' transaction.
* Started construction on a new 10,000-square-foot laboratory in
Pleasanton, set to open next month.
Rubinfeld hopes the moves, along with expected FDA approvals over
the next few months, will help keep the stock perking along at $18 a
share or more.
If it stays that high for 20 consecutive trading sessions, the
company will be able to call in $36 million in warrants, he said.
Since its inception in 1991, SuperGen has lost a cumulative $30.4
million, including $6 million in the first six months of 1997 alone.
But officials are predicting profitability by late next year, a
year or so after earlier estimates.
It's far too early to tell if SuperGen's blockbuster candidates
will pay off, of course, but its piggyback approach - leveraging
others' research into potential products with a better chance of FDA
approval - is designed to minimize the chances of catastrophic
failure. Unlike many biotech companies, it isn't betting the
franchise on a single, untested concept.
Said Jay Abella, who heads the Westergarrd Online investor
service: "This is the best model for a biotech company and its
management you can find." |
