Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Spekulatius who wrote (22063)	6/11/1998 7:34:00 AM
From: Mudcat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 32384

Finally got a response from Lgnd IR. They didn't really provide any new info. Here is the response: I apologize that your earlier note was not answered. I have been out of town Monday and Tuesday; and am just now getting to my mail. Basically, there is no news upon which the current weakness in the stock can be blamed. Our alliances are all going well with drugs announced or in progress toward human clinical testing in nearly all of them. We, too, were disappointed that the NDA filing and positive ODAC hearing did not result in a higher stock price. We know we are building value. We have recently had several new institutional holders join the ranks of Ligand shareholders, and they too are puzzled. Sometimes there are just more sellers than buyers. Sometimes an older shareholder may re-adjust his portfolio, or a new portfolio manager comes in. Sometimes, some investors just want to take profits. We do not report to the market on these routine comings and goings, buying and selling, of our shareholders. The underlying value of this company continues to grow with each milestone. We continue to have profitability in 1999 as a key goal that everyone in the company is working toward. In the meantime there will be numerous clinical and commercial milestones for which we hope the market will reward us and our shareholders. Until then, please continue to feel free to ask ytour questions and we will try to answer them as quickly and completely as we can

To: Spekulatius who wrote (22063)	6/11/1998 8:33:00 AM
From: jayhawk969	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 32384

<Someone on this thread brought up a very important point - the issue of stock,or stock dilution. If you look at the number from wsrn easily accessible from SI, you will see, that the # of stocks from 94 till now has increased from about 19Mill to 39 Mill shares. This is an tremendous dilution of stock even for a biotech. LGND has racked up 100M$ of losses in the last two years...all financed by new share issues. In my opinion this lack of consciousness for shareholder value is the reason for the low share price. My opinion is,that marketing a new drug, like ONTAK or Panretin will even increase capital requirements, before a positive cash flow can be established,which will force further dilution in the near future. Nobody here in this thread questions the quality of LGND's research but more consciousness about shareholders value would help the stock more than another alliance or another research project...> Whick programs would you have cut or what alternative mechanisms of finance would you have used? Or what other alternatives do you have for the increase in shareholder value when you are trying to build a company that does not yet have a product?

To: Spekulatius who wrote (22063)	6/11/1998 10:09:00 AM
From: Andreas Helke	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 32384

I don't know how you expect that development stage biotechs get their money? Doubling the shares since 1994 is standard operating procedure for development stage biotechs. The majority of them has doubled their shares in this time frame. Agouron which was recently used as an example of a company that cares about its shareholders and tries to minimize dilution did exactly the same as Ligand and doubled the number of shares since 1994. A company like Boston Life Sciences where you have reason to worry about dilution quadrupled the number of shares since then. Andreas