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To: taxman who wrote (1422)	1/20/2000 11:15:00 PM
From: steve mamus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8096

The major drug stocks have been major bow-wows for a while. PFE, Merck, BMY are GREAT companies but they are under enormous pricing constraints and too much federal regulation from an economic point of view. This is strictly an economic arguement not a discussion as to what the greater good is. The BIOTECHS are great. I am very,very familiar with these however a couple of problems. Assuming you can actually get a new biotech product to market, and assuming that the captive audience is more then 2,000 patients per year (unfortunately many of the newer biotech products are so underutilized that orphan status has become in vogue), the next problem is will you get paid for your product. Eg. the Federal Govt. had strongly considered paying 300 for a new lymphoma Rx which the company in question wished to charge 3,000 dollard for to get their R and D expenses back...I would rather invest in a sector where the captive audience is 1 billion people who want to use their cell phones and the market and not the govt. will tell you what to charge. The other thing I hate about many biotechs is that early on they may have only one product. If theie one product goes down in flames in phase II or III trial the investor will also go down in flames to the tune of 50-75% loss of capital in one day. This has happened a number of times. There are better places to put your money in my opinion.