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Biotech / Medical : Depotech(depo) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: StockDoc who wrote (768)	3/28/1998 3:46:00 PM
From: Tom D	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 887

I can't blame it on a lack of time. If one believes the conference call on December 20, my biggest lesson learned was to be very wary of companies which take Phase III data with small numbers of patients to advisory committees. The full FDA had input into the original design of DEPO's Phase III trial. DEPO enrolled twice as many patients as the FDA required. It is my understanding that a key person left the part of the FDA which was working with DEPO. In the conference call on 12/20, Erikson said that "the advisory committee was not prepared to honor agreements which had been made with the FDA 4 years earlier". The small patient numbers made analysis on an intent-to-treat basis produce insignificant results. Miljenko tried to warn us weeks before the committee meeting, but he did not try to refute my rebuttal of his concerns. I actually think he held a small position through the committee meeting. And we all know that DEPO was to top-rated biotech stock before the meeting. But this thread is all about trying to be smarter than the street. Bob Barels found two stocks in which I was wrong and thought he might have found a meaningful trend. But I am not a consistently stupid goof about investments-so I think his strategy of investing in the opposite direction of my recommendations would be ill-advised. In DEPO I got overconfident and scaled up my investment size. I can't recall reading much about this happening to other investors who delusions of being gifted investors, so my experience may be helpful to others. That is why I don't want to hide it or deny it. As far as overall investing competence is concerned (if this matters to anybody), please check out the KOSP thread. (It is still a small thread) Postings # 2, 11, and 12 from me all warn that the initial (Q3 and Q4) sales of their lead drug would be disappointing and explain why. I think I was the only pessimist on the thread. Unfortunately for that thread I was right, and the stock fell about 80% in a few months from when I gave the warning. I did not advocate selling that one short because it was unclear to me how high the stock was going to be hyped before the collapse. I do think I helped some people (James Silverman for one) temper their bullishness on that one. Best Regards, Tom D