Thanks David. I can give you a few (OFF TOPIC) ideas on biotechs,
but you should know that I am very busy as a post-doc and with
family obligations, and am not able to do as much research as I
would like to, so I urge you to read lots of 10K/Q's etc... of
course you know this. I am much lighter than I was in the spring
on biotechs, and with profits. Still have some (1/3 postions)
of: GENZL (Genzyme tissue repair, has a cell-culture based aid to
knee surgery healing, Carticel, and various interesting things
farther back in the pipeline (including neuro stuff), ARIA (maybe
start here & more below 4), ARIAW (warrants, these are remnants of
a very profitable
trading position which I would probably sell if they pop over 1),
NRGN (rebought after the recent
big drop), PCYC. Would be cautious about PCYC here since they
are doing an offering and there is always the danger of a selloff
after the underwriters stop supporting it (my rationale for holding
my third is on the PCYC thread). At its spring lows
of 15-16, PCYC would be a GREAT buy... phototherapy could become
really big over the next few years, and they have a cancer compound
in trials at Stanford, also agents for
photoangioplasty (though that is not as
far along), a treatment that if it works could be really big.
For PCYC, initial nibbling around 21 is another reasonable strategy.
Would consider initiating LGND on a drop under 12 1/2... do your
homework and don't rely on Henry Niman for short-term timing, for
timing of when news will come out and what its impact on the stock
will be, etc... (He is a reliable source of longer-term
fundamental information, though, in my experience.) Scads of
interesting stuff in the pipeline and big pharma alliances.
Drugs to affect "signal transduction" within the cell, applications
to various cancers, diabetes & other metabolic diseases, among others.
Farther along towards clinicals than some of the others I've mentioned.
I punted some CEGE (Cell Genesys) over 11 on news and in the 8's
on news of what looks to me like an unregistered (Reg S?) foreign
offering of floorless converts.... would consider getting back in
if these things get converted at a bargain price, depressing the
stock (it has a tendency to happen, from what I've heard). Very
interesting research in using various viral vectors for gene delivery,
applications to cancer and (I think) aids therapies among others,
but to tell the truth I've lost track of how close they are to
actual products... another reason I punt biotechs on occasion is
because they're time-consuming to follow, and you need to follow
'em.
Most of these picks were scammed from either Rick Harmon or Mike
Burke... that's another thing you should know before investigating
my picks, they are often second-hand.
With H&Q coming up, this could be a could time to do biotech. But
with the overall market tanking (?), it could be a bad time to go long
anything. Biotechs and techs have been good to me this year, but
Asian CEF's have been baaaad, so overall I am roughly even with the SP500 since Jan. I am not really looking to buy much without
another selloff.
Incidentally, "quantum information theory" is sort of a highly
theoretical branch of physics/engineering dealing with the
capacity of devices that mostly don't exist yet and may never
exist, so you should not think from that line in my bio that I have
any expertise in communications/networking. Strictly egghead-in-the-
clouds kind of stuff -g-. I hope I have some basic scientific/logical
common sense that applies to investing, though.
Remember, with biotechs, do your research, if possible talk to some
doctors about the potential market, find out what the competition is,
look at the quality of the researchers they've got working for them
(PhD's from Harvard and Berkeley... or Northern Boondocko Tech?),
look for plenty of cash relative to burn rate (or expect an offering
soon), low price-to-R&D spending ratio, and buy low -g-.
Cheers,
HB |
