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

To: Icebrg who wrote (8374)	5/16/2003 4:43:31 AM
From: Icebrg	Respond to of 52153

More Ariad [This piece is from Corante's Biotech blog "In the pipeline". The blogger seems somewhat put off by Ariad's tactics. (I supposed most of us do - unless we are shareholders in Ariad)] Since I mentioned Ariad's lawsuit against Lilly yesterday, I should note that there's been some news on that front recently. This week, a judge rejected a motion by Lilly to have the suit thrown out. It'll grind ahead, as scheduled. Ariad's shareholders reacted pretty heartily to the news (check this chart of the week's trading.) But that trading would seem to me to be either misplaced optimism (we're on! we're going to win!) or surprised pessimism (hey, whaddya know, the judge actually let us keep going.) Either way, I don't see it as a strong Ariad vote. It's just too early to tell. That's why this isn't such big news, because the only way the suit would have gotten tossed out would be if it were clearly baseless. And it's not - Ariad has an issued patent. That alone means, almost every time, that things are going to end up in court or in a settlement of some sort. Once your patent is issued, you do have some real leverage. But not all issued patents hold up - or, at least, not all their claims do. And not everyone interprets the meaning of the remaining claims the same way. It's going to be a while until we see what happens. Any trial would start next year sometime, and that's assuming it moves right along. (Lilly will doubtless be spinning things out as much as they can.) I'd advise both Ariad and Lilly shareholders to base their decisions on something else for a while.A telephone psychic will give you as much insight into the merits of the case as all this pre-trial maneuvering can. Meanwhile, Ariad is still in there pitching. Their CEO, Harvey Berger, is quoted in the above item as saying "Our objective now is to proceed expeditiously to trial and to seek a damage award based on a reasonable royalty on Lilly's sales of Evista and Xigris, as we continue to pursue additional licenses of our NF-(kappa)B patent portfolio." Portfolio is a rather rich word for a single patent, don't you think? And as far as "pursuing additional licenses," that seems to mean sending out more ominous letters, one to every company with a drug that looks like it might brush up against NF-kappaB. They seem to be keeping their eyes on company pipelines, alert for anyone they've missed. What a way to make a living.