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Biotech / Medical : VD's Model Portfolio & Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: schadenfreude who wrote (7311)	12/16/1999 2:49:00 AM
From: Spekulatius	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9719

ISIP and LGND ISIP is probably not a good short at 5$, but if it would go back to 8$, it would be a worthwhile idea to short,IMHO. The financial situation is bleak and the odds for the follow up products do not look great. If Novartis clinical team did not like them, why should I? This does not mean that these products cannot be a success, but the odds ar not good, IMHO. The 'platform idea' initially intrigued me about both LGND and ISIP. But now I think, that the platform concept is overrated. Even the best 'platform' only helps with the discovery process,but 90% of the cost is in clinical development. For this reason,the knowledge of the clinical development team is probably even more important then the drug discovery itself. A good clicnical team should be able to weed out the bad candidates earlier and subsequently save resources. I do not know, if Antisense is a good platform or not; it may have been a bad target, but for ISIP,this will not matter;if they make another mistake, they will run out of money. As far as LGND is concerned, I did not invest,because i did not like the high burn rate and the dilution. LGND has now three approved drugs, Panretin, Targetin and Ontak, but they are for a very small indications, namely Karposis Sarcoma and CTCL. The Seragen acquisition was initiated to acquire Ontak, and I pointed out then,that this was a waste of money and resources,since Ontak works only for a small population subset of CTCL and I believe,its more toxic than Panretin,so its an inferior drug. So why did they acquire an inferior drug for the same indication, for which they developed an better drug for? Still, the approval of Targetin for CTCL is certainly a plus; but anybody who believes, that off label sales for breast cancer will automatically kick in without strong clinical data and a marketing partner with a lot of firepower may as well believe in Santa Claus. However,I still believe,that at 9$ (or below) LGND is a worthwhile investment. Targetin still may evolve as a drug with a significant market in bigger indication. I would rather own LGND at 9.5$ then ISIP at 5 1/2 right now. Biotech is a minefield,and as an investor,its almost impossible, not to step on a mine from time to time. I hit mine with Glia recently, which was hit by and FDA imposed import ban for their only product. The people running the VD portfolio hit a landmine from time to time too, but they also hit enough home runs to make up for them.they understand biotech science much better then I do and thats why I listen to them, by watching this thread (and some others). And I remember, that this thread discussed ISIP as well, and the outcome was not favorable. Again,if biotech savvy people do not like an investment, why should I?