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Biotech / Medical : Aurora Biosciences (ABSC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Machaon who wrote (103)	5/22/1998 1:19:00 AM
From: Richard Haugland	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 359

Robert, this is what I posted on the Yahoo Board in response to my sources of information, which unfortunately are not much greater than those used by ordinary investors. This post is sort of like the disclaimers that appear in all company press announcements, i.e. take my comments with a grain of salt and do your own diligence. Not quite directed toward your question but I agree that "boring" in my last post on SI was not the right word for the stock again today. Absolutely no resilience and it dropped 6.87% on half normal volume. I put in an order to buy at 7, almost expecting it to be filled. I may renew that tomorrow. Response: credentials: I am president of Molecular Probes, Inc. (http://www.probes.com) and an authority on fluorescence for 30+ years, which is the technique used most by Aurora and other companies for high-throughput screening. My company develops probes and tests of the type used by Aurora and we have contact with all companies in this area, including Aurora. Although I have no personal knowledge of the internal operations of Aurora beyond rumors that are heard at scientific meetings. I personally know Roger Tsien because we sell several important products originally developed by him. I also know people who have worked for him and Dr. Tim Rink, the CEO. None of the information I have posted is from them or from anyone else inside the company but is either freely available or the result of various other inputs from the industry, including from competitors. Some of the insight is from discussions held at a recent meeting in San Diego on fluorescence, at which I spoke about microplate assays. Because of my investment in Aurora and my concern about its drop then (when it was about $10), I made it a point to talk with others in the industry since many people were from drug companies who were interested in the topic and do high-throughput screening. My comments reflect this information and conjectures. No one from Aurora was at the meeting. The information about possible problems the company is facing with evaporation and miniaturization comes from both previous posts by others apparently in the industry and basic knowledge of the technology since we do microplate assays on much larger volume wells (96-well plates). The information on insider trading volume is from the Insider Trader on the Web, although this does not show who is doing it. There was a one year lockout period that expired last December I believe, just about the time they announced some major deals. To me the volume of stock trading (often over 400,000 shares) versus the relatively low float is indicative of trading of "non-float" traders (since there is about 2,000,000 "float" shares I believe. I believe that the information on Aurora having a limited number of partner positions is from public statements, although their annual report indicates that there are some more alliances sought. The price drop (especially today to an all time low of <$7.50 intraday) bother me as much as you. I have been in this with purchases as high as $12 and holding more than 10k shares, some of which are in IRA accounts. The stock's performance since publication of the last quarterly report has been pathetic -- almost straight down. I still conjecture but have no proof that people really "in the know" (not me except as discussed above) could know from insider information that the company could be having difficult delivering on promises. There are people much more "in" on this company's real results than I am. These would be the insiders and the customers for the company's technology, not you and I. The information on the company being profitable a year + from now come from Zacks (see "detailed research" on the Yahoo page). I believe that recent forecasts have decreased the anticipated earnings but they are still positive for the following fiscal year. Aurora has a quite low burn rate (from its own reports) but expects to be a net consumer of money this year, as would be expected for a development-stage company, which the company mostly is. Aurora has probably the most ambitious program for high-throughput screening and I probably know most of the players in this field since Molecular Probes sells reagents and licenses technology to ALL of them. Perhaps it is also the most risky then, principally due to its ambitious goals for ULTRA high-throughput screening. It was taken public VERY early in its existence and I personally don't have much respect for some venture capitalists (Molecular Probes is owned by my wife and myself and financed by PROFITS). I hope that I have convinced you that we have similar positive hopes for the company (and for the remaining parts of our investments). I am (unfortunately) long on the stock, not short and have nothing to gain and much to lose by panning the company. I have a lot of respect for the company and the potential of its technology but post here (and elsewhere on other companies) because I feel it is important to keep people informed with the limited information I can find from public sources and private sources that do not involve proprietary corporate information. Personally I hate to operate on a lack of critical information and would never want to operate my own company with such paltry real data.