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Biotech / Medical : Agouron Pharmaceuticals (AGPH) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Bhag Karamchandani who wrote (4957)7/22/1998 8:16:00 PM
From: Izzy  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 6136
 
Bhag: Personally, I think that everyone's posts (except mine) have been great (objectivity, etc.). I'm having trouble understanding your post, however. Don't "boo-hoo" PI therapy. If I'm not mistaken (see post 4891), the doctor was taking a PI (I think I saw a bottle of Norvir on the table). Please read Dr. Oliver's posts about HIV/AIDS treatment. PI therapy is needed, IMO, without question, and I agree that Viracept will be the "gold standard." You haven't provided anything to refute this. In addition, it's certainly better to have an inventory of Viracept than to have a backlog and run out. Also, consider reading Yahoo IMNR BB; you need to get more current on Remune therapy. I suspect that next yr the standard combo treatment will be Viracept, Sustiva, Remune, + whatever new comes out. PS: VRTX reported terrible earnings & yet the stock was only down in fractions. Makes no sense to me whatsoever. And why is ENMD stock price higher than AGPH's. I would like to know if I get stock in AGPH #1 and AGPH #2 (like I received LU, NCR with the T breakup) AND, if new stock is issued, what basically happens to the current AGPH stock price? I assume it tanks further (to compensate). AND, when do we, as shareholders, vote? Maybe the shareholders will say "no." Then what happens?



To: Bhag Karamchandani who wrote (4957)7/22/1998 9:33:00 PM
From: Peter Singleton  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 6136
 
Bhag, actually the guys on the thread with the heavyweight credentials are Peter Suzman, Vector1, John Metcalf, and of course Rick Harmon. Check out their posts on a variety of other threads, and you'll see what I mean.

A strong argument can be made for AGPH being extraordinarily undervalued at this point, whether you look at them short, intermediate, or long term.

- Viracept sales. It's a blockbuster drug. It's going to do $700-800M in sales its second full year on the market. And these are based on AGPH's admittedly conservative forecasts. They've said $430-440M in the US, $270-300M in Roche sales (primarily Europe), or $700-740M in AGPH forecasted sales. AGPH forecasted $300M in US sales at the beginning of FY 98, and said they were being conservative due to a set of market uncertainties, which they detailed at the time. They came in when the dust setted at $358M in US sales for FY 98, 19% higher than their initial forecast.

Now they're forecasting $430-440M at the beginning of FY 99, and have said they were being conservative due to a set of market uncertainties, which they've detailed again. See the pattern here? Have you ever read a MSFT earnings report ... Maffei (sp?), the CFO douses expectations on the growth rate going forward ... but never highlights the unearned revenue, the $B in revenue already in house they have deferred to keep their reported earnings from blowing the doors right open, rainy day spending cash if you will. AGPH has the same philosophy of keeping expectations down, outlining risks and prospects, and exceeding those expectations.

Back to the market uncertainties for Viracept going forward. At the same time AGPH says we are estimating conservatively due to the following, they proceed to walk through each of the issues and show us why in their opinion those issues should not have a material effect on Viracept sales.

- What Viracept tells us about AGPH capacities

exquisite drug optimization capability. exceptional clinical development team and sales and marketing force. Don't under-estimate the value of the latter two. These are big unknowns for development stage biotechs, and you can consider them knowns here.

- Cancer portfolio

lots of research, on lots of targets. in the clinic with MMPI and GARFT, though the first GARFT compound has been put on hold, probably due to its therapeutic index, both in its own right, and in comparison with its follow-on compound. We'll know something on 3340 within 12-18 mos or so, maybe sooner. It's the same target that got BBIOY a very big (though inflated) market cap a couple of years ago, before BBIOY crashed due to bad management and problems with their molecules. 3340 is a much better MMPI than BBIOY's Marimistat. There's a compelling and logical argument based on the activity of the compound to show that.

- 7088

NYT or WSJ headline sometime in the next 12-18 months, "CURE TO THE COMMON COLD?"

- HCV

Sleeper compound families. I think these could be very, very big. No one even thinks of these.

- structure based drug design

arguably as good or better at this than anyone else in the industry or academia.

- etc

Peter