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Biotech / Medical : Organogenesis ORG -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jelrod3 who wrote (1209)	3/5/2000 3:06:00 PM
From: CMason	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1223

jelrod, Actually, ORG does report their monthly unit sales -- see biz.yahoo.com. The problem seems to be that Novartis takes most of the reported $900-1000 cost per patch, so that only about a third finds its way down to the bottom line. This is one of the reasons that ORG's gross margins look so weak (particularly when you subtract interest income out of what they report as "revenue"). As for the pipeline, most of it is simply too far away to judge whether it has above-average potential or not. My sense is that it's pretty far removed from the technologies (like genomics and bioinformatics) that are of greatest interest to today's biotech investors. Also, as you state, many of the planned products, such as the bioartificial liver, are a long way away from the marketplace. Given that medical device development and clinical testing take large amounts of cash, and that ORG is currently living from hand to mouth (witness the financing announced in the last few days), anyone who buys now in anticipation of these products is going to see their position heavily diluted before anything hits the marketplace. It was pretty telling when the Value Line advisory service dropped ORG a couple of months ago "to make room for issues of greater subscriber interest." Nevertheless, there is truth to the old saw that a rising tide lifts all boats, and shorts could find this a bumpy ride as long as the biotech craze continues. That's why I boxed a long-running and profitable series of short positions on ORG, as the company has in the past shown its ability to manufacture well-timed press releases which have temporarily spiked the shares. Regards, CMason