My, my... this _is_ flame-bait!
Look, in principle I agree with what you are saying. Big pharma
is paying peanuts for glorified fishing expeditions using a
technology that is largely unproven. However, screening of
compound libraries has been going on for almost 100 years and
has produced about 99% of all drugs on the market today. It is
the bread and butter of big pharma and so I think that companies
like ARQL and PCOP will always find partners.
Your example about the monkeys applies to rational drug design
as well. In this case, I'm the monkey. I look at a structure
and try and decide what changes I can make to a peptide to make
it bind better... I look and look and look and then when I think
I've got it, the damn thing doesn't bind. So then I do phage
display (combichem of sorts) and presto, a nanomolar binder where
the changes are subtle and complicated. This is why screening can
be so powerful. It doesn't even have to produce a drug. Lets say
ten of the best hits have the same functional group... this gives
you information that can be used for rational design of what will
be the final compound. If we can get this info cheaply from ARQL
or PCOP, then why not?
I view ARQL as sort of a contract screening outfit. Others may balk
at this, but until they have a well-developed and internally funded
research program, they are essentially screening for other people.
So they are not biotech and their science is not science per se, but
rather a technology. What you have to evaluate is whether their
business model will eventually generate a positive cash flow. I think
so.
Is there risk? Big time. Is this a no-brainer? No way. I think
John DC's point is that the risk of disaster _right now_ is less
than the chance for good news (deals, etc). ARQL is the hot company
right now and combichem is still a pretty hot area. When I first
started following combichem, PCOP was the only real player that was
public and as such it was a juicy takeover candidate. I can't help
but wonder if ARQL's strength this week is related to this type of
speculation.
John
PS. It is nice to have some opposing views on some of these threads. |
