Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : The Justa & Lars Honors Bob Brinker Investment Club -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: marc ultra who wrote (12063)	2/22/2000 6:14:00 PM
From: Investor2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15132

18% of your assets! Quick, sell 80% of it to get to the magic 4% level! <g> Best wishes, I2

To: marc ultra who wrote (12063)	2/22/2000 9:30:00 PM
From: MrGreenJeans	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 15132

My Centocor Experience Marc, here is some unsolicited advice as if you need it from me. Some years ago Bob was on NBR and talked about Centocor as having a "blockbuster" drug for septic shock...I believe if memory serves me it was to combat the bacteria that forms when one goes into shock which is often deadly. So MrGreenJeans goes out and purchases a good sized portion of Centocor with what little money he had back then-not much by 90's standards-but hell it was significant to me at the time. Much like the stock you are talking about the Centocor trials had "good" reports leaking out from analysts and the company alike for months at a time. The reports were so good it was expected, by me along with others (at least I hope I had company), that this drug would be approved by the FDA later in the year. So what do you think happens? You guessed it...the FDA disapproves the trial because of some invalid statistical reasoning in the results of the study, I believe Centocor based their projections about the drug on a subset within the sample they had taken which invalidated the study since they focused on a minute portion of the group instead of the whole group, and with that result the stock, can we all say in unison,...TANKED. I think my loss on the stock that year was $5,000 plus most of which occurred minutes after the FDA invalidated the trial. The point I will try to stress to you is that with any drug there are vested interests trying to influence the FDA for approval but is really only the scientists, the people involved in the study, that really understand what is actually going on and even, as in this case, they try to stretch, at times, the results all in the name of present and future profits. Knowing what I know now, what makes good experience? bad judgement, I would have used puts under the stock to protect my now vaporized profits but real losses. So my advice is in these situations results turn on a dime and protect your profits while they are there especially in biotech type drug trials.

To: marc ultra who wrote (12063)	2/23/2000 8:57:00 PM
From: marc ultra	Respond to of 15132

OT ENMD Father of angiogenesis sees bright future for tumor choking drugs By Mara Bovsun 02/21/2000 Biotechnology Newswatch Page 11 (Copyright 2000 McGraw-Hill, Inc.) Drugs that cut off a tumor's blood supply will one day turn cancer from a raging killer to a controllable chronic condition, said the father of the field of angiogenesis at a major biotechnology meeting in New York City last week. Doctors in the future will have several angiogenesis inhibitors to give in sequence, in combination or with other therapies to keep tumors from recruiting blood vessels needed to grow and spread, Dr. Moses Judah Folkman told an audience at the annual CEO and Investor conference sponsored by the Biotechnology Industry Organization. This will leave plenty of room for many companies to bring products to market without fear that competitors will crowd them out. ``If physicians had 10 angiogenesis inhibitors today you couldn't keep up with the demand,' Folkman said. Also, abnormal angiogenesis plays a role in at least 26 diseases from macular degeneration to psoriasis to heart disease and arthritis. Folkman also says angiogenesis agents won't prevent doctors from using other therapies, including chemotherapy, radiation, immunotherapy and other new anti-cancer strategies under development at biotechnology companies. ``Angiogenesis inhibitors are not mutually exclusive with other therapies,' he said. Folkman praised the work of the small 85-employee biotechnology company, Entremed Inc., for bringing Endostatin and Angiostatin to the clinic. Trials of Endostatin started in October, and Angiostatin studies are scheduled to start in two weeks, said John Holaday, Entremed 's CEO. Holaday told BTNW that once the drugs are tested as single agents in the initial safety trials, scientists are planning in the Phase II studies to look at the combination that eradicated tumors in mice. These were the best animal study results ever seen with a cancer fighting drug, and they fueled a market and patient frenzy after the treatment was lauded as the cure for cancer in a front-page New York Times article in May 1998. The article quoted Nobel laureate James Watson as saying that Folkman ``is going to cure cancer in two years.' Watson later denied making the comment, and Folkman himself found the reaction to the story troubling. He told one reporter for Newsweek that mouse experiments have no place on the front page of the New York Times. The excitement cooled even more when it became clear that these the drugs were so hard to make that scientists might never cook up batches large enough for experiments on humans. But, since then, EntreMed has worked out the manufacturing glitches. At the meeting, Folkman said that thanks to Entremed 's persistence, scientists will now have the opportunity to put the compounds to the critical human tests. Endostatin trials are progressing well, and Folkman said they have been ``very encouraging' to the oncologists involved in the work. At the meeting, EntreMed , which is investigating other drugs and anti-angiogenesis vaccines, was among several companies with products for cancer in development. Some of the others were: -- Celgene Corp., a 146-employee company in Warren, N.J., is testing thalidomide in a variety of cancers. The company is also investigating thalidomide analogues -- Immunomodulatory Drugs or IMiDs -- that retain the drug's angiogenic properties with fewer side effects. The company says initial Phase I studies of its lead IMiDs was completed late last year, and results will be released soon. The company has another class of drugs -- selective cytokine inhibitory factors, also called SelCIDs -- that modulate TNF-alpha. The lead SelCID is in a Phase II study against Crohn's. -- Oxigene, Inc., of Stockholm, which has created an anti-vascular targeting agent. -- Aeterna Laboratories, Inc., a Quebec City-based biotechnology company, has a drug -- AE-941/Neovostat -- that inhibits matrix metalloproteinases and blocks the VEGF-receptor. The company is investigated the drug in non-small-cell lung cancer and renal cell carcinoma, as well as in psoriasis. NOTE-thalidomide was licensed to Celgene by ENMD since they each had use patents and orphan drug designation for different indications. ENMD gets a percent of revenue from sales for any indication from Celgene Marc

To: marc ultra who wrote (12063)	2/24/2000 7:48:00 PM
From: marc ultra	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 15132

1976 bear and current possibilities. We know that there is a historic strong trend of outperformance from 11/1 to 5/1 with relative under performance from May 1 to Nov 1. I think this is an important consideration when thinking what a bear might look like given Bob called it in January. It is thus instructive to look at the run up to and course of the 1977 bear that the current market has been correlating to as Bob has mentioned multiple times forgetting about whatever fundamentals may have been involved since the correlation is not about fundamentals but about the topping process of a bull falling into a bear. I looked at some weekly Dow numbers from 1997 and 1998 to get some idea of what we could be looking at and to see in the case when a bear started in January how the usually seasonal factors mentioned above affected the situation. We can also throw in the mix the fact that Bob has clearly stated that he thinks this may take a long time to fully play out. Is some of that belief more than talking about a usual bear or has the 1977 model affected his thinking as well? Anyone interested can pull up the historical info from Yahoo but here is a sampling We peaked out on Dec. 1976 around 1004(figures not precise since I only looked at weekly numbers). After a couple of rallies and falls we entered the seasonal week part of the year at 936 on 5/2/77 By 5/23/97 we we had fallen to 898 6/20/77 bounced to 929 then went through a rather severe drop to 808 on 10/17/77 and finally bottomed at 748 on 2/27/78. The link should show the raw data. Obviously if different dates are put in the weekly numbers might look a little different. I think these might be the type of historical numbers Bob may be looking at and it shows the prolonged nature of a drop which if it occurs current investors are clearly not programmed to think about. I also am certain that if we get anything close to that 1977 scenario the NASDAQ will get hit and get hit big time. Also the 25% bear in 1977 is nothing the Fed will care to intervene in if the economy has not dramatically slowed chart.yahoo.com Marc