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Biotech / Medical : VD's Model Portfolio & Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Andreas Helke who wrote (4090)	2/13/1998 4:26:00 PM
From: Biomaven	Respond to of 9719

Andreas: <<I like Sepracor as a business but I am pretty wary about the stock price. For now I prefer to watch it from the sidelines and wait for either a serious price decline or a clear indication that it truly deserves its lofty stock price. Does anyone have an earnings estimate for 1999?>> I recommend you call the company and get a copy of the Morgan Stanley report from around 6 months ago. I think the key earnings years are actually 2000 onwards, as then all the new antihistamine revenue should be really kicking in. Sepracor is _very_ different from all the other biotechs I follow. With most biotechs there are very serious questions whether their products are going to be safe, effective, approved by the FDA and then find a substantial market, and whether the company can actually bring them to market without giving away the store to partners or killing shareholder value through dilution as trials and FDA approval drag on interminably. With Sepracor, these questions are much less of a problem. In some sense, it is much more like a generic drug manufacturer - the safety and efficacy of the underlying drugs have already been established. The only open question is whether their "improvements" are actually significant enough to enjoy non-generic pricing (and whether their patents hold up). In the case of Levalbuterol I think they have probably already shown enough to warrant a premium over the existing billion dollar generic market. In the case of the current $3 billion (and growing) non-sedating antihistamine market, they are getting a significant early boost from safety concerns about the existing drugs, as well as Schering-Plough's concerns about overcoming Claritin's patent expirations. Sure SEPR isn't as much "fun" as a brand-new technology company like Ligand or Isis. They're not at the forefront of the biotech revolution (although conceivably Versicor may be), but that's exactly why I feel comfortable with them constituting a major part of my biotech portfolio. Peter (who hereby promises to not talk more about SEPR on this thread for a while - I'm starting to feel like a certain LGND proponent <g>).

To: Andreas Helke who wrote (4090)	2/13/1998 7:06:00 PM
From: mike head	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9719

Andrea,& Peter. Take a look at Chiroscience. I'll sound like I'm pulling a 'henry' here, but CRO has often been called the UK's Sepracor. That was a couple of years ago when chirality and 'handedness' was everything- now each is branching out. zb. Chiro went in with BMY a couple of days ago, on a very exciting MMP program. The price is very reasonable,IMO. Just over a year ago, Chiro ate Darwin Molecular- run by Leroy Hood in Seattle (that's quite a story in itself). Chiroscience has a web site, chiroscience.com and trades in pence on the London exchange. Anyway, couldn't resist! Pax et Bonum, mch

To: Andreas Helke who wrote (4090)	2/18/1998 1:04:00 AM
From: Pseudo Biologist	Respond to of 9719

Thanks Andreas. Please do not remind me of Ascend here -g- what a fiasco. Let's hope Lucent or whoever puts it out of its (my) misery. Hope Sepracor does not follow that sad path, as I started averaging into it a few days back. Good for you on Ligand; it may take some time for it to really take off, but chances are it will. They have a pretty good strategy and the research is very impressive. I would not be surprised if after everything is said and done, it turns out that Panretin and Targretin (sp?) are just drops in the bucket. In other words, stuff now in the pipeline will dwarf these two. PB