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Strategies & Market Trends : Technical analysis for shorts & longs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: j g cordes who wrote (25234)	2/18/2000 2:13:00 PM
From: Johnny Canuck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 68396

Jim, Is this an indication we are getting pretty close to a near term top in the COMPX? The fact that the biotechs are moving up big time may indicate a lack of value in the other techs. ************************ ************************ Investors Get Carried Away With Cell Pathways (Among Others) By Herb Greenberg Senior Columnist 2/18/00 6:30 AM ET Fried-Day (And I Do Mean It!) Biotech boondoggle: Haven't used that line for nearly 10 years, but biotechs are back, investors are tripping over themselves to buy them and I have a job to do. With that in mind, not every company that is rising with the biotech tide is really a biotech company. Take Cell Pathways (CLPA:Nasdaq - news - boards). It was up 24% yesterday, but has been rising since a story in the Feb. 21 issue of Business Week said it's likely to get FDA approval for Aptosyn, which -- if approved -- will be used to help prevent precancerous cells that lead to colon cancer. First, it's not a biotech drug; it's the derivative of a drug that has existed for decades. (But, hey, but do you really think most of today's biotech investors know the difference between a genome and fenome?) And who is to say it will be approved? Stephen Sabba, a physician who is also research chief at Sturza's Institutional Research in New York, says, "I don't believe it will be approved, and even if it were, it's such a tiny niche indication." Indeed, the size of the market is believed to be less than 14,000 patients who will each spend $2,500 a year on the drug. That would be $35 mil in rev for a company that, as of Thursday, had a market cap of about $1.5 billion. However, that would be generous considering that Monsanto (MTC:NYSE - news - boards) was recently cleared by the FDA to use a rival drug, Celebrex, to treat the same condition. (This is a new application for what many know as an arthritis drug.) Cell Pathways Chief Counsel Richard Troy wouldn't discuss the market potential, but he did say that the company hopes the drug eventually will win approval for other ailments. That's what they always say. Easier said than done.