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Biotech / Medical : GUMM - Eliminate the Common Cold -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: big run who wrote (941)	9/20/1999 11:29:00 PM
From: DanZ	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 5582

big_run, Regarding the float... Gunn Allen Financial has followed GumTech for a few years and they have accumulated over 4 million shares. They have been buying stock since it was 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, ... and they are still buying today. I have personally spoken to a principal at Gunn Allen and the analyst assigned to GUMM. They are long term investors and they have very high long term targets for GUMM. While some of their clients trade GUMM, they have been net buyers for the past few years. Another of Gunn Allen's picks was Comverse Technology (CMVT). They began buying that stock below 10 a few years ago and it is trading over 90 now. When they first started covering the stock, they were pretty much the only analyst that followed it. Now, several large brokerage firms cover the stock and it has rallied significantly. The reason that I bring up CMVT is because it is indicative of Gunn Allen's philosophy on stocks. They invest in companies that they think have big potential but aren't yet well known. After the story develops, they reap big profits. While past success is no guarantee of future results, I believe that they will be right about GUMM in the long run. The difference between CMVT and GUMM is that things are happening much faster at GumTech than they did at Comverse. I don't think your comments about Quigley are applicable to GumTech. Quigley is basically a one product company and their sales have declined from competition and a lack of advertising. They have done a very poor job of communicating why Cold-Eeze is better than the myriad of other zinc lozenges on the market. The management at GumTech is well aware of Quigley and why they failed. GumTech has a very savvy management team, and I am confident that they won't make the same mistakes. In addition, GumTech is much more diversified than Quigley, and nicotine gum will only make them more diversified. In the first year after Quigley's clinical study on zinc lozenges was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, sales of Cold-Eeze increased from about $1 million to $70 million. They failed to capitalize on this momentum and stopped advertising. This is primarily what led them to lose their market lead. PS: Thanks for posting the story about Quigley's study on the dog pound. Best regards, Dan