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Biotech / Medical : Trinity Biotech (TRIBY) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Keiko who wrote (8316)	3/2/1998 10:02:00 PM
From: Ace	Respond to of 14328

Source: The Des Moines Register Date: Fri 20-Feb-98 Author: Lawless Jim By JIM LAWLESS Investor's Memo Wonderful and terrifying images can emerge when stock talk turns to investing in the biotechnology industry. Wonderful for longtime holders of a stock like Amgen Inc., a biotech veteran that went public in 1983 at a split-adjusted price of $1.50 a share, fell as low as 32 cents the following year, and traded this week at $54 on the Nasdaq market. Terrifying for shorttime owners of Cor Therapeutics, a stock that plunged 57 percent in a single day last month after a Food and Drug Administration panel gave the company's heart drug a weak recommendation. If biotech stock price volatility doesn't put off investors, then the age-old advice to avoid stocks of businesses we don't understand is surely a stop sign for most of us when it comes to owning companies that split genes for a living. Concerns aside, stock portfolios will benefit from the workouts they receive from biotechs, according to experts who say biotechnology investment territory is cheap and its business environment is friendly. Lower biotech stock prices are reflected in the Amex biotech index, which hit its high in 1992-1993 at 257 and now is around 160. "The level of interest in biotech is as low as I can remember in a long, long time," Stephen Flaks, who manages a $55 million biotechnology fund, told Bloomberg News. "That's a great sign for me. I love them when nobody wants them." Favorable changes in biotech industry fundamentals should make more of us want biotech stocks, according to Mort Cohen, manager of the Clarion Partners LP fund in Cleveland. For one thing, Cohen said, biotech managements are getting better, coming from large pharmaceutical firms rather than from academia. Genelabs Technologies (Nasdaq 4), one of Cohen's recommendations, is an example of management improvement in the industry, he said. The Redwood City, Calif.-based biopharmaceutical and diagnostics company is run by Irene Chow, an 18-year veteran of CIBA-GEIGY, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical firms. Biotech companies should receive more respect from investors for other reasons, Cohen said. Many have very good proprietary products with excellent prospects coming off clinical trials. In addition, the FDA is more lenient, the population is aging, the companies are largely impervious to currency fluctuations, and nobody's really talking about them. Cohen admits that it is difficult to figure where the biotechnology winners will be, so he develops "baskets" of the best prospects. Many of his favorites are trading at less than $10 a share, opening the way to add more eggs in the basket. Least expensive, at $2 a share on the Nasdaq market, is AMBI Inc. of Tarrytown, N.Y. The company develops antibacterial agents and nutrition products for cardiovascular and other conditions. AMBI lost 54 cents a share over the last 12 months, but chief executive Frederic Price said last week that he expects positive earnings for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1998. Other biotech stocks in which Cohen is invested include: SpectRx Inc. (Nasdaq 7 7/8), a development-stage company that researches and develops products that offer less invasive and painless alternatives to blood tests currently used for glucose monitoring, diabetes screening and jaundice. The stock has a 52-week range of $6.50 to $9.87 a share. Sequus Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq 9 1/2), a proprietary pharmaceutical products firm with products to treat cancer, systemic fungal infections and other infectious diseases. The stock has ranged from $5.31 to $13.37 a share in the last 12 months. Scios Inc. (Nasdaq 9 3/8) has clinical development programs on products for treatment of congestive heart failure and a variety of neurological and vascular conditions. The stock has traded from $3.62 to $10.62 in the last 12 months. ------ Jim Lawless can be reached at lawlessj@news.dmreg.com or (515) 284-8062. (Copyright 1998)

To: Keiko who wrote (8316)	3/2/1998 10:10:00 PM
From: Leslie S. Feinberg	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14328

What excitement! I haven't seen this thread so stoked for a year or two. Here TRIBY is trading under $2 and the buzz on the thread is not when do we get to $3; but when do we get to the teens. There is a palpable sense that our time has come. And how wonderful it is that the lads across the pond have not been twiddling their thumbs waiting. They have been building the infrastructure of manufacturing and distribution so that when the world was ready for rapid testing TRIBY would be ready to meet the challenge. Good things come to those who wait. El Scripto