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Biotech / Medical : Cell Genesys (CEGE) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: AurumRabosa who wrote (834)	3/29/2000 7:56:00 PM
From: AurumRabosa	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1298

Two Paths to the Same Protein by Andrew Pollack Boston, March 27 - A legal showdown began here today that could determine whether some of the biotechnology industry's most lucrative drugs will be vulnerable to lower-priced competition. On one side is Transkaryotic Therapies Inc., a tiny company with technology that could allow it to circumvent patents on drugs produced by genetic engineering. In partnership with Aventis, the big European drug company, it wants to sell its own version of Epogen from Amgen Inc., the biotechnology industry's best-selling drug, with worldwide sales of about $4 billion. ...long article... If Transkaryotic wins, royalties from the sale of EPO would also go to Cell Genesys, the company with similar gene-activation technology. That is because Aventis licensed Cell Genesys' patents to prevent Cell Genesys from blocking TKT. The license also extends to the second drug Transkaryotic and Aventis plan to produce together. That drug, which is about to enter clinical trials, is speculated to be Amgen's Neupogen. search.nytimes.com Is this common knowledge to CEGE investors? I attended Dr Sherwin's talk at the 3/11/00 Informed Investor's Forum in Santa Clara and was surprised he gave so much time to obsessing about the 12% of Abgenix stock and the $250 million in cash. He mentioned it 3 separate times in his 20 minute talk but I think once is enough. There's so much technology to discuss in 20 minutes why waste any of it repeating yourself. Right now the ABGX stock looks like a boat anchor hanging around our necks. Unless ABGX rises it's more of a liability than an asset. As for the $250 million in cash it's great and it means to me that they don't have to waste time fund raising and can focus 100% on their business plan. He made a quip that they could go 139 years on their present burn rate. It was also clear to me that they plan to increase their burn rate by increasing their efforts to get products to market. With that kind of war chest they could also buy another company. As for the arbitrage idea the college boys posted on the web I don't see it. The value in CEGE is in their product pipeline and I'm buying more at these levels. cellgenesys.com