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

To: scaram(o)uche who wrote (559)	1/21/1998 7:35:00 PM
From: Harold Engstrom	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1686

Just my take on the company now: The company's Avonex sales are at a pace of roughly $80MM per quarter now and royalty income is still appreciating. Also, there are several promising products that have multi-billion dollar potential - LFA3TIP, anti-CD40L, VLA4, and OP-1. In addition, CVT124 is in late stage clinicals and Avonex is in trials (or may have completed trials) for other indications. Hirulog is apparently progressing as well and may generate some royalties. If I recall from the annual meeting there are a total of seven products being tried on 20 indications. Biogen has a very large cash base and great facilities. The R&D is solid and the clinicals are well run. In addition, Biogen has a method of operation that is rare in biotech - a pragmatic but creative approach to projects: they are not penny-wise and dollar-foolish and they don't waste their time and resources on poor bets. Last year around this time I sold all my Biogen holdings. At the time, the pipeline did not seem as full and the risk of Avonex losing ground to competitors was higher. I since repurchased those shares. The pipeline is bursting, AutoImmune's product failed in the clinic and Teva's copaxone doesn't stop MS progression and has lots of side effects. I think Biogen is on track to 40% price appreciation year-over-year for the next decade unless they get bought out in the meantime. I respect V1's estimates for earnings. I personally expect Avonex sales at this time next year to be double what they were this past quarter and for earnings to be about $2.00 per share this year.