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.

Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 16yearcycle who wrote (121499)	3/24/2001 12:48:31 PM
From: Skeeter Bug	Respond to of 164684

ek, points well taken. i'd say a 1/3 position is a no brainer. a 1/2 position is a strong nibble. the bottom line is that a LOT of people will be able to use this drug and they are capacity strained right now while making $0.29 per year. increased capacity = more $$$. i'd say this price point is decent even for enbrel and current applications. anything else is gravy. psoriasis sound pretty good, though. ek, i love value and hate over-rated crap (sometimes they can be the same company - i loved gztc at $3.00 and hated it 6 months later at $30.00 - it eventually went to $50! - now it is back to $5.00 and i really like it again though i'm cautious). i don't lump everything into one basket. amzn is crap b/c their b-plan (even if they had one!) is bankrupt at the current valuation. management is poor and actively deceptive. the overall market is goo goo gaa gaa, too. even now. but, value is there and imnx looks good at $11-$13.

To: 16yearcycle who wrote (121499)	3/24/2001 3:27:05 PM
From: H James Morris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

EK, I agree with you on IMNX, but if you want to limit your risk in BIO's I'd go with Amgn. Amgn is like Amat...they're both 800ib Gorillas. >NEW YORK, March 23 (Reuters) - Investors who thought biotechnology is the decade's sure bet for big profits received a reminder of the high risks involved when one of the industry's leaders made a shock announcement on Thursday. Seattle's Immunex Corp. halted tests of its successful arthritis drug Enbrel in chronic heart failure patients because the drug did not prove effective, causing shares to plunge more than 40 percent on Friday. The additional use had the potential to double Enbrel sales to nearly $4 billion in its peak year of sales, analysts said. "I think in the industry, you have the potential for some blockbuster products, but you never know until they're approved and that's just the harsh reality of it," said Leah Cann, an analyst with First Union Securities. Enbrel is one of a handful of drugs made by biotechnology firms that have proved wildly successful, along with Rituxan for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma sold by Genentech Inc. (NYSE:DNA) and IDEC Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:IDPH), and anti-anemia drug Epogen, made by Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN). But for every highly watched biotech success, there can be dozens of frustrating failures. "The moral for me is that it doesn't matter if it's a big-cap or a small-cap company," said CIBC analyst Matthew Geller. "Sometimes the small-cap or mid-cap companies have very promising early stage trials and I think there is some predictability there." NEW SCIENCE CAN BE A RISKY BET The novel research done by biotechnology companies can be both a blessing and a curse, analysts said. "One of the challenges here is that they're doing new science," said Leerink Swann & Co. analyst Robert Leboyer. "This is not anything that has been established. They discovered the science and then came up with drugs to treat the condition." Using complex biology -- including analysis of proteins, antibodies and genes -- many biotechnology companies are navigating uncharted territory, making for dicey investments. "There are fair amounts of discovery involved, whereas if you're looking at a new antidepressant or a cholesterol-lowering drug, many of the mechanisms and the pathways are well-known. Here, it's not, so there's that additional element of risk," Leboyer said. And many biotechnology investors have lost large chunks of money from relying on companies whose experimental treatments have failed in clinical trials. Maxim Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:MAXM) said in January 2000 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a non-approvable letter on the firm's drug for advanced skin cancer, sending the company's stock down 30 percent. In June 1999, shares of Icos Corp. fell 21 percent in one day after the biotechnology company disclosed a disappointing clinical trial of its experimental hemorrhagic shock drug, LeukArrest. And Sepracor Inc. (NASDAQ:SEPR), which helps big drug companies improve existing drugs, saw its shares fall more than 35 percent in October 2000 after the company and Eli Lilly and Co. (NYSE:LLY) abandoned plans to develop a second generation version of Lilly's blockbuster antidepressant Prozac. GETTING HOOKED ON DRUGS But shares of Sepracor and Icos have since rebounded, as investors slowly turned to look at the other drugs in the firms' developmental pipelines. And other companies not expected to devise promising treatments have seen their shares soar after positive clinical trials. All of which leaves investors wondering whether it is possible to unwrap the hype surrounding biotechnology companies that develop therapies. CIBC's Geller said the news that Immunex failed the chronic heart failure trials for Enbrel -- as well as poor results from trials of asthma drug Nuvance -- shows that investors need not be completely shocked by late-stage clinical trials. "I think that with both of these drugs, there were indications that they were high-risk," Geller said. "In the case of Nuvance, we'd already had two failed clinical trials. In the case of Enbrel for congestive heart failure, there are many other causes of congestive heart failure. Therefore, it wasn't clear that TNF (Enbrel's target) was one of the main players in congestive heart failure." Although analysts said some surprises are inevitable, Geller said investors can do homework to hedge their bets. "It is possible to manage your expectations by examining previous trial results," Geller said.