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

To: Sleepman who wrote (17583)	3/18/1998 9:31:00 AM
From: Henry Niman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 32384

Dan, As I have said in the past, the Leptin signaling deal will be primarily research. Terms are not clear, but deal is important for Ligand credibility and implications for SBH directions. I expect their involvement with LGND to continue to increase as SBH moves toward STATs and away from Genomics.

To: Sleepman who wrote (17583)	3/18/1998 9:33:00 AM
From: Henry Niman	Respond to of 32384

LGND has traded at 16 1/2 on fairly heavy volume (25,000 in first few minutes).

To: Sleepman who wrote (17583)	3/18/1998 9:39:00 AM
From: Flagrante Delictu	Respond to of 32384

Dan, LGND is getting more money to help finance the discovery of new exciting compounds & development of more of the targets that they don't currently have enough money to handle. Bernie

To: Sleepman who wrote (17583)	3/18/1998 12:20:00 PM
From: tuck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32384

Dan And Henry, It not clear if there will be any dilution. Ligand may release treasury stock, in which case the float is raised. Or SBH has to buy on the open market, lowering it. The release does not say which of those alternatives will be used (one may be standard in such deals, but I am unaware), but neither does it say stock will be issued. An open market buy would be the best for shareholders, stock issuance the worst by a nose. Henry, Re: the Tahoe small molecule. You wrote "they had made a presentation on the identification of a small molecule characterized under the SBH alliance. I obtained fragmentary updates and assumed that they had a small molecule that interacted with STATs associated with G-CSF (Neupogen). I soon found out that the small molecule actually interacted directly with the G-CSF receptor and it was exquisitely specific (distinguished between the mouse and human G-CSF receptor)." My fragmentary update indicates the darn thing is, in fact, too specific. The murine models showed benevolent effects, but not so the human ones. Evidently the target human gene has amino acids in a few different places. They got a molecule to bind with the human receptor but didn't get the results. So more screening required. Expect it to be done close to year-end. Feel free to extrapolate from there. I'd guess four to six years to approval, myself. As for the SERM, I was just guessing to start the ball rolling, fishing for plausible scenarios in Lake Ligand. I couldn't see Lilly giving up an entire SERM, but a piece of one, I could. A limited market or indication (is this possible?), for example. In my scenario, it could be used to train the existing Canadian force or in the limited indication scenario, to start the U.S. one. I expect the fertile minds on this thread can come up with angles I haven't even considered, based on these tidbits. Should be entertaining and edifying. My Mom's account is starting to look good with this price trend! I was considering a spread on a pullback to 15, but now I doubt I will get it. Considering my value as contrary indicator, Ligand should have considerable upside :>) Of course the hard part is knowing when to sell. Regards, Tuck