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

To: George T. Santamaria who wrote (5251)	9/3/1998 10:53:00 AM
From: Bhag Karamchandani	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6136

"Agouron still has to deliver on AG3340 in a timely manner and the divisional proposal won't change a thing." I tend to agree. Here's why. My informal monitoring of over two dozen biotechs reinforces your argument- to the extent that incremental revenues contribute only marginally to a stock's price- relative to new drug approvals. Yesterday's FDA approval of two drugs bears and its impact on price also bears this out. IF AG3340 is going the way of Thymatiq( and I have ABSOLUTELY no information one way or another) then it may be in the best interest of its shareholders for AGPH to abort AG 3340 PIII trials now, while the stock price appears to be irrationally depressed. Of course, it would also prove embarrassing for the proposed Oncology Division to have two strike outs.But it would be a double blow to long suffering (pun intended)shareholders to suffer another setback - assuming an interim stock price recovery if and when the market recovers. ALL THIS IS SIMPLY AN EXPRESSION OF AN OPINION. NO MORE. EMOTIONAL LONGS ARE REQUESTED TO DISREGARD THIS IF YOU DON'T AGREE. "their basic mission, which used to be building an R&D pipeline which cranks out two products a year". It was this technological promise which attracted, and so far, has disappointed me too. One drug approval in over twelve years. In fairness to AGPH, few developmental biotechs have lived up to their promised potential and AGPH has done better than most as far as revenue generation goes. Good luck to all.

To: George T. Santamaria who wrote (5251)	9/4/1998 10:58:00 AM
From: tommysdad	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6136

<<I think that management, in spite of their successes, still has a lot of accountability to their basic mission, which used to be building an R&D pipeline which cranks out two products a year. Let's hope that they are not losing their way.>> I thought this little piece of misunderstanding had been cleared up a long time ago, but apparently not. You have mis-stated "their basic mission." AGPH has never stated it expected to crank out two new products a year. That would tax the likes of MRK or PFE, let alone AGPH. What AGPH stated, on their home page, is that they planned on {eventually} putting two new drugs into development per year. Considering the vast majority fail long before launch, one might expect a new product every other year or so. Quite reasonable for a company of AGPH's size, particularly if they target reasonable (>$100-200M) sales goals. The distinction between "putting drugs into development" and "putting drugs onto the market" was lost before, and you seem to have missed it again. AGPH is delivering what they promised. Don't blame them if you misunderstood what they promised. I fail to understand how investors can start turning on one of the most successful and well-run biotechs because the stock has fallen during an unbelievably painful flight away from biotechs. Would you rather own ABSC ($15 to $4)? GERN ($16 to $5)? AXPH ($9 to $4)? No. Management at AGPH have only been fattened because they developed an extremely successful company. Umm, isn't that what the U.S. is all about?