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.

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

To: Biomaven who wrote (10714)	2/29/2004 2:39:00 PM
From: jayhawk969	Respond to of 52153

It speaks to the whole idea of a "feedback loop" which often underlies very large price movements....... Food for the feedback loop: finance.messages.yahoo.com

To: Biomaven who wrote (10714)	2/29/2004 2:59:49 PM
From: Icebrg	Respond to of 52153

>>"feedback loop">> I was just about to write something along the same lines. But luckily Peter was ahead of me with his much more elegant version. So, I will just round it off with some crude observations. Sepracor has run its business in an extremely leveraged fashion. It is not only that the balance sheet has been overloaded with convertible debt, which seemed to be too far away from the conversion points. The company also used a very high degree of leverage in product development - no partnering resp. a more than fair number of products in development at the same time, in sales and marketing by creating an in-house sales force, and in research (it could be argued) by choosing its own development model. Over the last couple of years all this leverage has primarily been perceived as negatives for the company. Now, if and when it turns profitable all that leverage will instead be looked upon as a positive factor, which will accelerate the company's further development. Erik

To: Biomaven who wrote (10714)	2/29/2004 3:57:15 PM
From: Tomato	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 52153

Any big changes from the last Biomaven portfolio update? Message 19429269 Inquiring mind(s) want to know. ;-) Only if you want to. Thanks.

To: Biomaven who wrote (10714)	2/29/2004 4:30:48 PM
From: quidditch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 52153

Peter, Perceptive points, all. I have to go back and get my arms around the stepped hedge that was put into place to understand how the different strikes and market prices play out in terms of net cost and dilution. On the downside (Monday opening hasn't even arrived and I'm already raining on the parade), I guess there are the following: - management's irrational exuberance (R&D spend) (maybe Soltara really did give them religion) - Xopenex challenge--what is your assessment of probability? - market swoon and valuation - failure of drug candidates - politically motivated assault on drug pricing* and facilitation of entrance of generics into the market - Estorra market share against existing and new competition Corrigan seems to be a real asset. A steely, steady, no-nonsense hand working among drug development, science and regulatory affairs can't hurt. * (At dinner with friends last night, there was a heated discussion about our system of meting out medical care: those who can afford it do quite nicely (availing themselves of the benefits of arguably the most cutting edge bio-medical sector in the world) vs. the inequitable distribution of care to the rest of us. Our hosts: the husband's mother, who has outlived the "system's" willingness to fund hospitalization for advanced Parkinson's (she has survived a good year beyond the programmed end point) and the wife's niece, who is being refused care for autism and other conditions on the basis that the therapies proposed are "experimental". My wife works for an HMO--she was, of course, empathetic, but also observed that she is privy to impassioned screaming matches between CMO's and assistant CMO's and nurses who argue impassionedly about whether a given treatment is justified or should be withheld. I chimed in with the conundrum between the insane costs of some treatments (especially oncological) vs. the absence of incentivation that would result if pharma and BT could not recover (and then some) their sunk costs in successful therapeutics as well as those that never reach application status. Will we reach the point of caps on gross margin? As we boomers absorb more and more of the care, and account for more and more of the expense, of our health care system, can real reform be too far off? Not in this administration, but somewhere down the line. In this sense, since SEPR is not, by and large, seeking marketing approval or R&D in critical care products, does that confer an advantage? Recall the discussion on this board regarding the allergy treatments, OTC and prescription. quid Peter--re ENRN--what made the "toxic convert" analogs so insidious was that they worked their magical value destroying magic from afar, through undisclosed spv's whose capitalization and transactions values were premised on the value of ENRN stock. I hope to see Skilling trudge down his own, personal Calvary.