<<I'm getting awfully tempted to buy more EntreMed at current levels to avoid the risk that it doubles again before I get to buy my desired full position.>>
Andreas, Rocketman provided his reasons, would you mind if I add a little?
Of course, it may double, but it may be 25 $ in 2 weeks also and below 20$ at the end of the year.
What kind of problems ENMD may have?
General problem, too often being forgotten, is that the main aim of medical sciences today is to cure mice. Not like scientists are crazy. Experiments with mice are usually faster and cheaper. In addition, surprisingly not too many people wish to serve as laboratory animals. So mouse is very good model. Is it an ideal MODEL? Thread's title should stimulate us to discuss MODELS, let's do it.
Imagine simple experiment first (please, don't try). Leave girl alone in the room, than open the door and allow nude mouse to run into. If your choice is correct, girl will jump on the table. Now, change the protocol. Open the door and allow nude man to enter. If you have chosen correct model... Now open the door and put money, New York Times and naked ENMD calls into the room. What may happen?
As you may see, mouse and human are really different, but that difference may be forgotten when it comes to the stock. Mouse and human not only look a little different, but molecules of their bodies could be also very different. Some basic molecules are very similar, as well as some basic metabolic pathways. But how far this similarity may go? And that's seems to be the major problem: drugs designed to cure mice may or may not cure people. I am not sure what the probability is. 12 % seems to be too exact for such case, but 10-20 seems to be reasonable guess. Has anyone numbers of drugs shown to be effective for mice but ineffective for people?
As an example, you may read piece from Science at the end of this post:
Message 4582038
<<
Then, in an object lesson in the dangers of hyping cancer therapies, hopes--and stock values--shriveled. Although Levy's antibody worked, the effects of other antibodies in humans didn't match those in mice, and unexpected toxicity even killed patients, bringing clinical trials to an abrupt halt. Antibodies vanished from page one, and many firms abandoned them.>>
as well as here:
207.121.187.155
13) Are there compounds that had promising results in mice but proved
less successful in treating human cancers?
Yes, many. A prime example is interleukin-2. In the 1980s, this drug was
very successful in treating tumors in mice. But subsequent studies in
people showed that interleukin 2 caused significant side effects, such as
severe drops in blood pressure and the leaking of fluid from blood
vessels. These difficulties in people were not predicted based on the
mouse studies. A large number of chemotherapy drugs have much
greater effectiveness against mouse tumors than against human cancers. >>
As usual,there are some technical questions. For example, 0.2 ml of endostatin was used per 20g of body weight, subcutaneous. Let's say for 80 kg man:
0.02 kg - 0.2 ml
80 kg - X ml
X=800 ml, (Company may add, more than two can's of Coke) seems to be a little too much for subcutaneous injection. Probably 80 times more concentrated solution may be used, but is it stable, what would be the reaction, including local, to such concentration? Has been such solution ever tested, even on mice? Any technical question may be potentially solved, but it takes time. If ENMD can produce enough protein in yeasts, that's good. The problem, however, is: is this protein as "safe" and effective as from E. coli? Has AS/ES proteins produced from yeasts ever been used even for mice treatment? Are preparation methods the same as described before?
Also purification of ES/AS should be done extremely well. Given an amount of protein to be injected and frequency of injections, any contamination from producent (E. coli or yeasts) may provoke vigorous immune response.
<<I fear that a successful EntreMed will be bad for the business and particularly for the stock prices
of the other cancer biotechs in my portfolio and want to be prepared for this possibility with a
big enough EntreMed position to offset the potential losses.>>
WS reaction, as far as I could see, was very different from that you are expecting. Look at Boston Sciences, for example. WS is usually searching for analogy, reasonable or not. Again, ES/AS are not the first angiostatics, and definitely not the last. Last time I checked, 36 companies worked on angiostatics projects, not to mention huge amount of research labs. An important thing to remember also is that proteins are not necessarily the best drugs. Problems with production, purification, storage and administration are usually significant. "Small molecules" may be better.
<<I checked EntreMeds short position and found that it was about 1/4 of the float. Does anybody
know if this is enough for a decent short squeeze?>>
If they cure cancer, 10 shares short will generate sq. If they can't, than stock price will go to cash, and I do not expect a lot of cash left at that moment. This stock is gamble, or even worse. You can't estimate your risk/reward ratio.
All these publicly available numbers about short positions and float are well outdated and not always correct. Average entry point may be also important.
Finally, I would be extremely careful with all information from SI, especially posted on ENMD thread for last 2 months:too many serious mistakes, let's hope they were not intentional. It's appl. to this post also.
Have a nice weekend.
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