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

To: Spekulatius who wrote (7312)	12/16/1999 12:23:00 PM
From: schadenfreude	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9719

If LGND's original platforms are so great, what were they thinking buying another platform in Seragen (fusion proteins)? Resources are being spread too thin. Robinson is more interested in empire building than protecting shareholders from dilution. Wish we could send him back to big pharma where he belongs. Yes, blowups like GLIA are painful, but only temporarily so. GLIA at $8 was a huge buying oppty. I agree that ISIP at $5 and LGND at $9 are not.

To: Spekulatius who wrote (7312)	12/16/1999 12:30:00 PM
From: Vector1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9719

Ralf, Excellent posts. We are always in the role of making investment decisions without perfect knowledge. It is somewhat a percentage game with events effecting the odds. When a large pharma drops a drug candidate that is usually a negative sign. However, there are a number of exceptions and I do not drop the stock as a matter of rule but look at it as a factor. In the case of ISIP we dropped the stock early because I thought the degree of difficulty with an emerging unproven technolgy was too high. Notice we do not have any gene therapy investments. I believe both gene therapy and antisense has promise but it is too early. 10 years ago MABs were a great idea but it was too early to buy CNTR. Today MAB are a major and proven category. Being righat too early didn't make anyone money. With regard to Ligand, I think they have poor management and the drugs that have been approved serve small markets which do not justify the cost of getting them approved. The key for LGND is Targretin for Breast Cancer. The preclinical looked very strong and if they are getting good results in phase II the stock will generate a great return. I am going to sit on the sidelines and await the results. I do not totally agree that platforms are overrated. Millenium for examle is a platform company which I made the the bonehead move of selling too early. Great technology and the potential is being recognized by the street. SEPR is also in effect a platform company as is AFFX. Maybe the issue is with platform drug discovery companieswith early stage products. V1