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

To: EACarl who wrote (71)	9/2/1998 5:31:00 PM
From: Robert L. Ray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 127

Thanks for the info from IR. I also picked up a bit at 15 3/8 today. Certainly a great price given the fact that they have around 108 million (6.46 per share) in cash and should be profitable in 2000 according to the CEO. I would have felt I'd gotten an even better bargain if I hadn't had to sell another bombed out bio to have the funds to buy more GELX. But as the market gets more dicey I'm gravitating to the stocks I have the most confidence in which means selling those bio's that don't have approvable products on the near horizon or are underfinanced and faceing dilution at these weak prices. So GELX seems to be one of the few bios that fits the bill. >I was told that there are no upcoming press releases and that all is >well. Ya, they seem to be a pretty low key, non-hype outfit. Not exactly a press release machine like some other bios; which I mostly like but sometimes find a tad frustrating because of the lack of news. In the url I posted Slatsky said to expect the Cholestagel phase 3 results in the first quarter of 99 which I find a little dissapointing. I felt sure they would be out before year end. Oh well to put a positive spin on it I'm beginning to get the feeling that this is a pretty thorough company which dots all the I's and crosses all the T's. Instances like Aviron getting whacked for something such as the FDA having additional questions about the manufacture of their lead product is something we certainly don't need. Things like manufacturing I've tended to take for granted and I now see that in the drug industry nothing can be taken for granted. I'll end with one possible Renagel application that's probably just me dreaming and hoping for the best but heck I'll throw it out anyway. In any search engine type in soft drinks and osteoporosis. You'll get back tons of hits about how soft drinks are bad for the bones because of the phosphorus contained in them. So therefore it would appear that Renagel would be beneficial not only to kidney dialysys patients but also to those people who drink quite a few soft drinks. As I say it's probably just me hoping for the best and I would doubt that the average person who drinks lots of soft drinks would start taking Renagel but that might not be the case for people who are already diagnosed with early stage osteoporosis. I mean if something like Fosamax is beneficial and widely perscribed for this then why shouldn't Renagel be added also for the osteoporosis soft drinker crowd. Oh well... it's a thought anyway. I'm certainly not banking on it happening.

To: EACarl who wrote (71)	9/12/1998 12:19:00 AM
From: Robert L. Ray	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 127

Geltex got a blurb on page 74 of the latest Businessweek. Perhaps that's one of the reasons for its strength this week. (Plus the fact IMHO that it was and still is ridiculously undervalued.) From Businessweek, TAKE MY FAT--PLEASE About five years ago, Harvard University chemist George Whitesides had a brainstorm. Because polymers can be constructed with chemical arms able to selectively grab onto other molecules, why not design an indigestible version that can rid the stomach of unwanted substances? Like fat, for instance. The idea spawned GelTex Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Waltham, Mass., which by yearend hopes to win Food & Drug Administration approval for its first product: a polymer that grabs onto phosphate in the gut, then is excreted. That's vital for patients whose kidneys can no longer remove phosphate from the blood. Next in the pipeline is a polymer that grabs onto cholesterol -raising bile acids in the stomach. In current clinical trials, small amounts of the polymer have caused cholesterol levels to drop by 20% says GelTex President and CEO Mark Skaletsky. Now, GelTex is developing a polymer that can latch onto fat. It wouldn't be ready for several years, but if GelTex succeeds, it may be possible to have your cake and skip the fat, too.