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Biotech / Medical : Ligand (LGND) Breakout! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alper H.YUKSEL who wrote (11970)	12/2/1997 11:13:00 AM
From: Henry Niman	Respond to of 32384

Alper, The Roche termination with AGPH is significant because it represented two major clinical programs and AGPH doesn't have that many things in the clinic. They are currently very dependent on Viracept (which of course has made them profitable) and I think that Thymitaq was their most advanced clinical trial (and hope for the MMPI program was reasonably strong - Jim McCamant mentioned it yesterday on CNBC and although it is still viable, the move by Roche was not a strong endorsement). LGND of course uses hormone receptors to screen hormone analogs, so their programs aren't that "experimental". They do have many clinical trials, and not all will move forward (over the summer they announced the ending of some early trials, but of course these same compound have already generated stellar clinicals for other indications), but most if not all of the drugs that enter the clinic will have some usefull indications. LGND also has many alliances and LGND's role is just initial screening in some. For instance they identified compounds under the GLX atherosclerosis program and its now up to GLX to move these drugs through the clinic (and I think 1 or 2 are slated for INDs in 1998). In one sense, the program has ended (I don't think that LGND is doing any more screening for GLX), but in another sense, its ongoing (the TZDs have applications for atherosclerosis as well as diabetes and the diabetes applications are being folded into the LLY deal, while the Rexinoids have many applications, some of which are being persued by LGND independently, some by AGN independently, and some by LLY under their new alliance. Of course long term complications are always a wild card for new drugs, but LGND's many programs allows for discovery of synergies (like Rexinoids and TZDs) which should make compounds safer and more effective.