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Strategies & Market Trends : Rande Is . . . HOME -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Condor who wrote (46590)	2/4/2001 6:03:24 PM
From: velociraptor_	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57584

Condor...Re:CEGE. Chart wise and technically speaking, the stock is in a long down trend in a parallel channel going back to Sept highs. Strong resistance on the top channel line lies at 21 and though it has come off lows, stochastics indicate the stock is overbought and is turning for a down cycle now meaning the channel should remain intact. A break and a close above 21 would signal a potential long entry, but not before then. Current support is at 18 1/4 and at 16 7/16, which would be optimal buy points on the way down, but be prepared to bail on a long position if they break by more than 1/4 of a point or so and wait for the next lower entry point. Research wise, CEGE has some great ideas in the area of gene therapy, but I am skeptical of this technology just yet. For one thing, it does not appear to have anything beyond phase II trials, and unless something actually gets past Phase II and final approval for sales and marketing, nothing is guaranteed in biotech. I have seen many things go all the way and only to fail in the final stages. Gene therapy is tricky. Second, this technology has been worked on for well over 10 years now with limited success. The greatest success has been in administration of the "drug" that induces expression of the correct protein or a protein with effects to counter act a problem. However, the problem still exists in dose response and will be a much more difficult task to solve. Think about these... Not every person is the same size weight, etc. So, how do you know how much gene therapy to apply? Will too little not be enough? Will too much have adverse effects? How do you adjust the amount of gene therapy for a 100kg person over a 200 kg person? What if the gene therapy needs to be applied to only one type of cell within the body? How do you target just these cells? What if you get it in other cells...will it have an adverse effects? Once you get it in cells, how do you turn the genes on and regulate them? In other words, how do you control how much corrective protein they make? Can you turn it off if you need to? What if you make too much...will it have adverse effects? What if you only need to make the protein at certain times during the day like an insulin gene after you eat...how do you control this? Some gene transfections are transient...meaning they get "kicked" out of the cell after a certain amount of time? How can you control this? This is only a small list of the potential problems they have yet to solve, and while the prospects are great for this kind of technology, there is still too much that we just don't know or cannot do. That is why I say, the real biotech revolution has yet to come.