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

To: Machaon who wrote (23127)	7/13/1998 4:22:00 PM
From: Robert L. Ray	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 32384

>> LGND seems a very credible investment when you consider the pipeline,<< Yep, I learned the hard way the value of a good pipeline with my AGPH investment. LGND's pipeline is the deepest I've seen in any biotech I've looked at. Let's just hope it's quality pipe :) >>plus Henry's total devotion to Ligand's science. I can't believe that a person, with Henry's knowledge and background and enthusiasm, could be significantly incorrect about Ligand's science, and Ligand's ability to bring their science to market.<< Agreed....I'll have to admit that Henry most definatly played a part in my decision to invest in LGND. I feel very lucky to have recently invested at the price I have, because by all rights this stock should have already run up and I'd never have bought in since I'm more of a contrarian than a train jumper. For me personally the final imputus of me buying into LGND was the designer hormones they are working on. And this I know is just a small part of what they are working on. I'm not sure exactly what the current sales of Premarin is. For the sake of arguement lets say around 2 billion a year. Premarin is off patent. Currently their are no generics on the market for it but eventually that will change. AHP and LGND are working on drug/s that could eventually make Premarin all but a dead drug. I mean millions of women face a tough choice after menopause of whether to use estrogen replacement therapy or not. The choice is whether to take estrogen and face an increased risk of cancer or not take it and suffer hot flashes, vaginal dryness, and worst of all an increased risk of osteoporosis. A more selective type of estrogen or estrogen mimic or whatever you want to call it would make the decision a no brainer. Such a drug with all the benifits and none of the side effects would be a home run. Such a drug would in all likelyhood be priced at a premium to Premarin. Perhaps 50% higher. Also IHMO fully twice as many women would choose to take estrogen replacement should such a selective drug exist. So given those mathmatics. 2 x 1.5 x 2 = 6 billion Deduct about 1 billion because some HMO's will shortsightedly stick to prescribing the cancer causeing Premarin. So you come up with a 5 billion dollar drug. Actually I don't right off hand know the details of the AHP agreement so I don't know how much of that LGND would be entitled to. And also of course such a drug is a long way in the future. I just thought I'd give it as an example of the potential of some of the things Lgnd is working on. It's just that LGND seems to be working on an awful lot of stuff that are honest to goodness improvments on currently available drugs on the market and not me-too drugs. That is the promise in this company. The really great thing is that bonifide improved drugs are the type which will get accelerated review by the FDA.