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.

Biotech / Medical : Trickle Portfolio -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tuck who wrote (399)	1/21/2001 8:53:04 AM
From: tom pope	Respond to of 1784

Tuck, I'd be happy to, just give me instructions re purchase price.

To: tuck who wrote (399)	1/21/2001 4:06:31 PM
From: Londo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1784

Just read XGEN's S-1.. (first half of it anyway..) Competition: MRI and PET? Is that all these guys can think of? I could only see them competing with INCY, ABSC, etc in the area of "creating a proprietary database of information" rather than the actual imaging procedure. One big question: is the gene that XGEN 'lights up' patented? Are they trying to patent it? Can they patent it? Can some other company come up with a transgenic 'xmas tree' mouse and sell it as well? The S-1 wasn't all that specific to what 'intellectual property' was patented.. here's the paragraph: We seek to protect our commercially-relevant proprietary technologies through patents both in the United States and abroad. We have patent applications pending in a number of areas which we believe will be valuable to our business, including gram positive bacterial vectors, animal models of disease, transgenic animals useful in drug discovery research, imaging systems and computer- implemented methods for image acquisition and analysis. If ABGX and MEDX can get a patent on their mice, I don't see why these guys can't either.. No lawsuit garbage for this company. Cool. Not sure I like the leadership structure: co-CEO's? Most man-and-wife households can't function properly, what makes them think they can run a corporation with the same structure? :) (i'm not trying to imply that Carter and Contag are together or anything, just that I don't believe in this "co-CEO" garbage.. choose a leader, and get on with it.. if Carter took over the operations, that would probably be the better case in my mind.. he's been at the helm before..) How many full commercial licenses does XGEN need to sell in order to be a break-even entity? The long sales cycle and the fact that you can count the number of current evaluation licenses on your fingers raises the question of how much further the company has to market their devices.. After the offering, they should have roughly 100 million in cash in the bank to do their R&D with.. not bad.. but they obviously won't have any positive cash flow for the next couple of years.. given that, personally I'd hold off until at least after expiration (180 days), let the insiders dump their shares, and then see the prospects for the company then.. obviously if they make $5 million revenues per year on a commercial license, things change a bit :) The technology sounds novel, but looks like it needs further development.. I'm not exactly sure why they are going public - they have 30 million in the bank which will last them a couple years.. plus if their technology is actually viable (financially), they'd be able to fetch more money in a future IPO while selling off less of the company.. although since most of the insiders got in at pennies a share, I don't think they really care about that right now.

To: tuck who wrote (399)	1/22/2001 9:17:16 AM
From: tom pope	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1784

tuck, TSC's take on XGEN. Bear in mind that the prevailing line at TSC is bearish on biotech. It's from Ben Holmes' column. IPO: (XGEN:Nasdaq) Developed and is manufacturing and marketing a novel system designed to improve the efficiency and productivity of drug discovery and development. Deal size: 7,000,000 Price range: 10.00 - 12.00 Led by: UBS Warburg My take: Biotech -- what to do? This is the first biotech deal of the year and I'm still not convinced that you should be exposing yourself to these IPOs. This one is a pretty early situation with almost no revenue derived from customers. Most of the reported revenue comes from government grants. The technology is very speculative and has not yet gained any meaningful acceptance. There are no significant VCs behind the company and in reading the "Shares Eligible for Future Sale" section, it is clear signal that the insiders want liquidity ASAP. I'm going to be conservative and discount any potential "hype" or "boredom" plays on this one. Consider it flat in the immediate term and risky in the intermediate (three to six months) term.