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Biotech / Medical : Biotechnology Value Fund, L.P. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Miljenko Zuanic who wrote (1443)	2/21/2000 9:27:00 PM
From: LLCF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4974

My 2 cents: <1. Where is confidence, and why strong conservative sentiment for recent rally?> Because I believe [based on observation of rally] that there is money thrown at sector with only some regard to potential. Therefore, when selling occurs I believe it will happen the same way, and although in the long run good stocks will prevail and outperform, over the next year or two that won't necessarily be the case. Mr. Market will sell the same way he is buying. Not to say that long term investors should sell... saying when correction comes, few will be spared. <2. Why many compare bios rally with high technology (micro-electronic and internet) past performance?> I believe Mr. market knows even less in biotech... in tech the 'gems' perform such. In biotech I don't believe this will be so prevalent. <3. Are momentum player for sure significant contributory factor here?> Yes. <Point is that, regardless of the disproportion in stock price rise for sub-sectors stocks, sector as a whole has a long way to go, just IMO. > Agree with the caveat that in biotech, lack of sales will result in tremendous buying opps in downturns.... when is downturn?? Who knows, looks like we may be sidestepping this current one? Bio's looked good in the face of late last week... perhaps a real test this week. DAK

To: Miljenko Zuanic who wrote (1443)	2/21/2000 10:10:00 PM
From: Torben Noerup Nielsen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4974

Dear Miljenko Optimist, Do you know of anyone seriously working on protein/silicon interfacing? To me, this would seem to be an area with a fantastic future. Laugh all you want to, but do think back some 20+ years ago when at least some of you were watching Star Trek episodes. Remember these silly little communicators they kept flipping open? They looked pretty futuristic then, but today Motorola makes some that look just about identical. Except they can do more things.... Given the scientific advances tend to follow an exponential curve, it would be kind of fun if one could find similar things today since we'd probably only have to wait 10 years or so to see it happen. Put differently, who among the biotechnology companies are the furthest out? Does anyone doubt that most presently announced goals are realizable in 5 years or so? Where would you look if you were interested in parking a little money for more than 5 years? High risk is acceptable. Thanks, Torben

To: Miljenko Zuanic who wrote (1443)	2/21/2000 10:17:00 PM
From: Torben Noerup Nielsen	Respond to of 4974

Miljenko, >And when does evolve, bio-technology is protected from >competition by patents as well as inside know-how. >Generally this wasn't case for consumer high-technology. >Few top people can just walk from one company to another >and build value. I think this is the crux of the matter. In the Internet game, people have been switching companies like mad. Usually the payoff was a slightly higher salary. And their knowledge was sufficiently portable that this worked. Most of the Internet is built on software - running on hardware, but that's actually secondary - and it's been very difficult to protect this. So steal you main competitor's good programmers at whatever price you have to pay and it's worth it quickly. In the biotechnology field, this is not really so. At the very least, you'd have to steal a whole lab and even if you did, there would be all sorts of patent restrictions to deal with. I'm assigning additional value to some biotechnology companies if they have what I consider sufficient focus. The more focused they are on a well-defined - even if it is large - area of inquiry, the more likely they'll have a cohesive group that is hard to move. And there's value in that. Thanks, Torben