Nothing new, this article wasn't responsible for anything, IMO. They just said again what bears (like myself) for the most part have been saying for a long time now, i.e. that approval was never particularly the short case here, but the real issue revolved around the size of the market and how much Biotime could take. I haven't followed this closely or traded it long/short for maybe, say, almost a year?
Anyway, here are a few chosen paragraphs (so as not to violate the copyright) to give you the gist:
<<The bulls contend that the market for Hextend is a multihundred million-dollar opportunity for BioTime and its marketing partner, Abbott Laboratories (ABT:NYSE). Funny thing is, Gensia Sicor (GNSA:Nasdaq), a small Irvine, Calif., company, got approval for a generic hetastarch product in mid-November. Hextend is a hetastarch with electrolytes.
In a press release, Gensia said the market for hetastarches in 1997 was $29 million. It shrank in 1998 to $28 million, the company said.
...
Here's a reference point: Hextend is BioTime's first product, and the company will get a small royalty on initial sales. Its market cap is about $170 million. Gensia had $178 million in revenue last year. (Its market cap is about $260 million, but that's because the company lost money last year.) >>
Anaxagoras |
