new pick: BIOI (NasdaqNM: Biosource @ $6.00)
I held this stock early this year and sold it after a stop I had set was violated for a nice profit. Then one broker put out a sell recommendation as the company announced to be gearing ready for higher R&D and a much expanded product line.
However the following quarter gave a big surprise as earnins were up instead of down (EPS 0.05 before accounting charge of goodwill wrt. new FASB rules). Valuations are so nice now that I finally decided to go long again...
Price sales at 1.80, implied PSR at 1.50. Gross margin improved, Revenues up more than 10%, almost at $10m per quarter run rate now..
This is a biomaterials company, a smaller competitor to the bigger firms like Techne. The nice thing about this biz model are good margins and that you don't have to deal with the FDA wrt. new drug application processes and expensive clinical trials. Think it's time to get in now as the chart has found a good floor at the $6 level. Probably some upgrades to come too..
Company description:
BIOI (NasdaqNM: Biosource @ $6.00)
I posted this just for reference..
I held this stock early this year and sold it after a stop I had set was violated for a nice profit. Then one broker put out a sell recommendation as the company announced to be gearing ready for higher R&D and a much expanded product line.
However the following quarter gave a big surprise as earnins were up instead of down (EPS 0.05 before accounting charge of goodwill wrt. new FASB rules). Valuations are so nice now that I finally decided to go long again...
Price sales at 1.80, implied PSR at 1.50. Gross margin improved, Revenues up more than 10%, almost at $10m per quarter run rate now..
This is a biomaterials company, a smaller competitor to the bigger firms like Techne. Think it's time to get in now as the chart has found a good floor at the $6 level. Probably some upgrades to come too..
BioSource International, Inc. develops, manufactures, markets and distributes products used worldwide in biomedical research that are instrumental in the development of new drug therapies and medical diagnostic methods. The Company's products enable scientists and biomedical researchers to better understand the biochemistry, immunology and cell biology of the human body, as well as disease processes. The Company offers over 3,200 products that it groups into the following product lines: assays, antibodies, bioactive proteins and peptides, oligonucleotides and serum, buffers and media.
Assays
The Company has developed reagents and methodologies for the measurement of cytokines and chemokines in blood or other biological samples. The Company's enzyme-linked immunoabsorbant assay (ELISA) test kits are a combination of cytokines, their antibodies and other chemical reagents, and are used to measure the presence or quantity of a particular bioactive protein in serum, plasma or other biological sample. The quantitation of these cytokines and chemokines has been shown to be a way for scientists to determine the functional status of the immune system. Since many of the targets of pharmaceutical intervention are designed to modulate the immune system, using these quantitation markers as a means for gauging the effectiveness of treatment is becoming a key monitor.
BioSource produces and markets radioimmuno-assays (RIAs), which are used internationally in clinical laboratories for the measurement of hormones and proteins important in growth, reproductive and thyroid disease. These assays utilize radioisotopically labeled molecules to compete with non-isotopically labeled molecules for sites on known antibody concentrations. RIA is a mature technology used primarily in European and other foreign countries and is not widely used in the United States.
The Company has combined its oligonucleotide and ELISA technologies to develop a portfolio of other assay kits that measure the quantity of messenger RNA, which is the type of RNA that serves as a template for protein synthesis of various cytokines in blood, cultured cells or tissues. The Company's molecular analysis kit product line permits detection of the individual genes, and quantitates the amount of the gene that encodes for a specific protein. The Company also has developed kits that allow researchers to measure multiple genes at the same time from a single sample.
Antibodies
Antibodies are used as detector systems in the research of normal and abnormal proteins. Antibodies are proteins generated by immune cells in response to foreign substances, which are called antigens. Antibodies have specific amino acid sequences, which cause them to interact only with the antigen that induced their creation. Antibodies circulate in the blood and assist the body's immune system by searching out and neutralizing or eliminating antigens. Antibodies are used by researchers in a variety of applications, including neutralization studies in bioassay systems, as capture and detection molecules for protein quantitation and for cellular differentiation. Antibodies used in research are generally produced by injecting an antigen into animals, which cause the animals' immune system to produce an antibody specific to that antigen.
Bioactive Proteins and Peptides
Proteins, which are chains of amino acids in particular sequences, and their interactions are responsible for all of the biochemical and physical properties of a cell, as well as variations among different types of cells. Proteins take various forms, including enzymes, hormones, antibodies, receptors, cytokines and chemokines. Proteins are ideal for use in basic research, drug discovery, enzymology, high-throughput screening, in-vivo studies, x-ray crystallography or as antigens for antibody production. The Company's primary protein products are cytokines and chemokines, which are regulatory molecules that control growth and differentiation of cells.
Chemokines are specific proteins that regulate the recruitment and activation of white blood cells and other sites of inflammation. Chemokines function by binding to receptors on the surface of affected cells. Interest in chemokines exists due to studies linking chemokines and their receptors to the development of HIV.
Bioactive peptides are subsections of proteins or small proteins that are synthetically created. These peptides represent the active or inhibitory site of a particular protein, and are used to study the activity of various proteins. Some bioactive peptides, such as beta amyloid peptides, have been shown to play a major role in the development of Alzheimer's Disease.
Oligonucleotides
The production of oligonucleotides is a custom service the Company provides for researchers engaged in molecular biology. An oligonucleotide is a synthesized polymer made up of the same building blocks that form DNA. Synthetic oligonucleotides have been used in molecular biology for over 20 years, essentially as templates for nucleic acid and protein synthesis, and as the therapeutic agents for the inhibition of gene expression or as a diagnostic agent to identify disease. DNA is used by almost every discipline in biomedical research in both academic and commercial areas, including molecular biology and cell biology departments of major universities and biomedical companies developing gene therapy products. These researchers use synthetic oligonucleotides to determine the exact sequence of a gene, or to perform experiments leading to the potential development of pharmaceutical drugs. The primary use of the oligonucleotides the Company develops and sells is for DNA sequencing and polymerase chain reaction priming. DNA oligonucleotide services the Company offers include rimers, probes and arrays.
Serum, Buffers and Media
The Company manufactures over 240 serum, media and buffer products. The Company also offers custom formulation services for unique applications. These products are vital in growing specialized cell cultures. In most cases, cell cultures are a primary testing method for the effectiveness of vaccines and drugs for a variety of diseases.
The Company's customers include Astra Zeneca, Amgen, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Genentech, Georgetown University, Bristol Myers Squibb, Biogen, Johns Hopkins University, Eli Lilly, Human Genome Sciences, UCLA, Glaxo Smithkline, Hyseq, UC San Francisco, Johnson & Johnson, Icos, University of Michigan, Merck & Company, IDEC Pharmaceuticals, University of Pennsylvania, Pfizer, Rigel Pharmaceuticals, University of Texas MD, Anderson, Pharmacia, Cancer Research Center and Schering-Plough, as well as government entities such as Centers for Disease Control, the United States Food and Drug Administration, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Veterans' Administration Medical Centers and the United States Army Research Institute.
The Company's primary competitors include biotechnology companies such as Techne Corporation, BD BioSciences, New England Biolabs and Invitrogen.
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