The fact that Ayefan exercised and sold 30,000 PKN shares on the 14th and then when the stock started to slide back down, he exercised and sold 4600 more on the 18th makes it seem like the afterthought was, better get it while he can. Did he have a lockout that ended around then, or was he kicking himself for not getting out in the $70s earlier in March before it slid into the $60s.
GEN had a big writeup on the PKN/TIGR deal in the June 1 issue which arrived at my house today. Pretty much parroted what was in the press releases, except they didn't mention that it was only a letter of intent to form the new company, and they talk about the machine using present tense as if it already exists. They also don't mention anything about the MDYN capillary machine which beat PKN to market by about 2-3 years. What cracked me up is that they have a cheesy line drawing of how the Prism 3700 will look, uhhhh guess there aren't any photos that could be published yet. VAPORWARE AND A VAPORCOMPANY, BUT IT WILL BE THE BEST THING YET!!! YEAH RIGHT!!!
GEN of course quoted the ill-informed analyst Deepa Pakianathan of Genesis Merchant Group who downgraded INCY to a hold saying that this will devalue commercial databases like INCYs because PKN will put the data out to the scientific community. This guy seems clueless about intellectual property rights and what that means to Pharmas. At least they had INCY's Roy Whitfield's comments along the lines that he didn't think being first to achieve total genome sequencing will really win anyone anything, and that he expects INCY will be done sequencing the genome by 10/99 anyway. Hey, the academics will love PKN, and they don't really like INCY because INCY won't give it away to the academics, and believe me the academics have been asking for years. INCY is a for profit business, run by devout capitalists, trying to create value for its investors, not a research institute trying to be dogooders. The good comes out of the for-profit Pharmas, agricultural and other companies using genomic data to advance science and medicine using the INCY data. If there is no profit motive, the advances just stagnate. It is no coincidence that most medical advances come out of capitalist systems and not socialist or communist ones - the government just can't do it better. Of course HGSI/TIGR only loaned data to the academics after they agree to sign away all commercial rights to use their discoveries. Nothing like free R&D, but then again, HGSI had the intent all along to be a drug company and compete with the Pharmas not just be a service to them. Well, PKN will be in the dbase business too apparently, selling data whose patents will be mostly owned by INCY and HGSI, but hey, details, details, details, they just kill the hype, so the media shouldn't look so deep. Besides, that wasn't in the press releases spoon fed to the media by PKN/TIGR. Hell, they don't even have a name for the putative company yet. They also mentioned how they think the SNPs will be so important. Well, INCY already has found 10,000 SNPs which are in their dbases, just a little head start on PKN here too. Now that I understand more just where Synteni is, that the INCY/Synteni combination is a quantum leap ahead for INCY.
In this same issue of GEN they rank the top 50 biotechs by market cap, and have HGSI as #10 (where INCY should be), but completely leave INCY off of the list (only the hottest biotech company of the past 5 years). Number 1-9 are all oldtime biotechs who have been around a long time. In this same issue though they do mention the INCY/OGS Proteomic deal on the front page, so they haven't completely forgotten about them. They also left INCY's execs off of their biotech millionaires listing earlier this year, even though Whitfield, Scott and Gilbert clearly qualified to be there, pretty high up the list I might add, and their stock positions are in the SEC filings, so it isn't hard to find. Of course GEN is a New York publication, so I think they tend to have a regional bias. Or maybe they only include the millionaires who call up and tell how much they have??? INCY has never gotten much respect in the media, and I'm not sure they ever will. The INCY guys have NEVER been hypsters, are pretty blase about PR, and even really significant stuff like they revealed at their annual meeting is not summarized in press releases. Of course, I think they are getting used to me doing coverage for them @;-> But, even when I hear things on the street, like the fact that they are using capillary electrophoresis, which I knew awhile ago, I don't reveal it here publicly until they publicly admit it. I can still keep secrets about them (even though I don't think they believe that). I was glad they were forthcoming about it at the annual meeting, but was prepared to ask them when they thought they would be converting to capillary. Pretty exciting stuff though.
INCY seemed to have good volume today and a nice upswing, and has weathered the market doldrums well. I could see some big increases in the short term as the institutional money flees techs due to Asia and tries to find some Asian proof places to put their cash. I don't think INCY has any Asian deals yet, not exactly a Pharma hotbed. Now a Swiss/German/New York/New Jersey economic crisis could be relevant.
Ask me and I'll tell you (OK don't ask and I'll tell you anyway): INCY IS A SCREAMING RAGING BUY AT THESE PRICES!!!
Rman |
