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Non-Tech : Bill Wexler's Dog Pound -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hank who wrote (8055)	7/6/2001 11:50:41 PM
From: Biomaven	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10293

Hank, I was talking primarily about acquisitions of biotechs, not pharma-pharma mergers, where I agree there are often substantial reductions in personnel. I've been following biotechs seriously for about five years - prior to that period my knowledge tapers off sharply. I agree that small biotechs are individually very risky. However a owning a carefully selected basket (at least a dozen, preferably more) of small biotechs can be a very rewarding investment strategy. There are several people on SI (like Rick Harmon and Vector1) that have consistently demonstrated that that they can produce exceedingly attractive returns over multiple years investing in small and mid-sized biotechs. It may seem a total crap shoot, but I can assure you that it is not. The street has a tough time valuing biotechs, and the good part of that is that you can get substantial mispricings which eventually get corrected. Biotech raised about $40 billion last year, and unlike the dot-coms, most of it still sits in their coffers. I agree that many biotechs with market caps of $100m and under won't make it; but there are over a hundred with market caps north of $500m. Most of these will make it as independent companies or be acquired at a premium. Peter