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To: Sam Sara who wrote (99373)	4/7/2000 12:56:00 AM
From: H James Morris	Respond to of 164684

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To: Sam Sara who wrote (99373)	4/7/2000 8:50:00 AM
From: Mike McFarland	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

OFF TOPIC Sam, regarding Biotech--you wrote... <uncertainties involved are an order of magnitude greater than in the standard technology> A barrier to entry? It is certainly a lot easier to flood the world with dot coms, and while there are some crummy biotech companies--maybe sorting out the wheat from the chaff is a useful exercise. Another question, what is the total marketcap of biotech versus big pharma, versus, say, the semiconductor or software areas. What are profit margins like for each sector. How does a semicondictor chip compare to a drug? Do demographics favor more chips or more drugs. Or is this is all apples and oranges--I think if you can find good management and smart companies, then the particular sector of the market in which you have placed your bet does not matter too much. <NO products that I am aware of that are directly tied to human genome data> I thought genetic data and PCR led to biotech in the first place, back in the 1970's. Although, since they've just now sequenced the entire genome, I suppose it is too early to say that there are drugs based on that accomplishment in and of itself. <no gorilla or kings have emerged> Amgen, Biogen, Genzyme, Genentech, Immunex, Chiron <For many years now I have been concerned that our ability to sequence the genome will allow us to target particular ethnic groups with biologic agents> Ethnic groups are not especially genetically similar, oh maybe a few isolated aboriginal tribes. Even the Icelanders, who have been in the news, are not very similar. Your awful comment sounds pretty sci-fi. I'd fear new strains of TB or HIV before I followed that line of thinking too far. <There is no correlate to Moore's law in the biologic world, and that is telling.> No. Actually, Moore's law is what makes biotech so exciting. Bioinformatics, computational biology, crystalography etc etc--biotech will thrive this next century, thanks to computational increases. <the runup in biotech was very mysterious> Actually, it was long overdo. The biotech stocks had lagged for some years, since the mid '90s I think. The sector had begun to look very small compared to the pharmaceutical sector, and increasingly, big pharma is going to lose marketshare as a flood of new biotech drugs replace the old stuff. Also, a lot of that internet money was looking for a new hot sector, biotech is the perfect thing to replace it. I think even after the big correction in biotech, it will still be the sector for this year, maybe several years ahead. I wouldn't neccessarily want to own too many of the genomics stocks, Celera for example, although I do like Genset. Just yesterday I rediscovered Sangamo, SGMO, they just did their IPO, the market yawned that first day...but I bought a little of that, extremely interesting--although I do not have a background in molecular biology.