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

To: Night Trader who wrote (12913)	1/1/1998 8:14:00 AM
From: Henry Niman	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 32384

martin, That sounds much better than Raymond James lowering ratings. I haven't seen any new projections. The old ones showed a loss in 1999. Robinson began talking about profitability in '99, and although analysts seemed to think that it was possible, I didn't see any numbers. I assumed that the profit would come in late '99. Profitability this year is certainly news to me. Jesse Eisinger's article in thesteet.com did give numbers for treatment for KS and CTCL and the costs were higher than i expected. The number of patients is on the small side, which of course could be used to justify the treatment costs (manufacturing costs are pennies per pill), since so much R&D is required for approval. Robertson Stephens had projected annual retinoid sales reaching $500 million by 2006, but gave no details (although the vast majority of sales were from cancer, not metabolic diseases). The recent television newscasts demonstrated some rather dramatic effects in head and neck patients. This disease can be difficult to treat so doctors may be quite willing to use Panretin or Targretin off-label. There is also evidence showing decreading PSA levels when prostate cancer patients are treated, and of course new cases of prostate cancer is 10 times higher than KS (using LGND's fall of '96 cheat sheet). Off-label use of LGND's compounds for various cancer types could be quite significant. Overcall cancer survival rates are not much different than they were 30 years ago. Some cancers have shown remarkable improvements, but others, such as lung cancer (especially in women), continue to climb (brain and skin cancer are also on the rise). Did Bear Stearns give any details on how profitability would be acheived this year?

To: Night Trader who wrote (12913)	1/1/1998 11:47:00 AM
From: Hippieslayer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32384

I haven't gone thru the posts yet, but for BS (that's what a lot of analyst dish out as well) to say that LGND could make money in the Q4 of 98 will not sit well if LGND doesn't deliver. The scenario that I'm afraid will happen is that LGND's stock price will get pumped up to very high levels due to the "irrational exuberance" of the over paid idiots that call themselves analysts. If lgnd misses "the mark" then watch out. LGND's stock could then plung into the abyss. This is just a common scenario that I have seen played out too many times by the hands of those that can manipulate the price of a stock.