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Biotech / Medical : VD's Model Portfolio & Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: rkrw who wrote (5667)	9/26/1998 5:25:00 PM
From: Vector1	Respond to of 9719

rkrw, Yes I am the one who made the bonehead Dura pick. They have disappointed Wall Street twice in 6 months. The steet has lost confidence in management and the stock is being punished. Fundamentally their basic business is sucking wind. Sales have not been good as they have competed in the flu and cold market against much better capitalized and more formidable companies. They have taken the risky step of increasing their sales force to try and spur growth. So far it has failed miserably but it is still early. The good news is that IMO Spiros will be a successful delivery technology and both the Albuterol product and the nasal steriod. THe one negative on the albuterol delivery is that SEPR is moving quickly with is improved version of Albuterol and DURA needs to cut a licencing deal with SEPR. In additon the company has close to $10 per share in cash even after funding Spiros. This is the result of a convert offering they launched when the stock was in the $40s and the market was red hot. Have to give them credit for that one. The interest rate is at 3.5 percent with no sinkers and the conversion price at current stock prices is irrelevent. They were expected to make an aquisition this year to enchance earnings but I am not holding my breadth. The managemnet team, actually has a good reputation (or at least they used to). At the senior levels most are Hybritech alumni- and thus the Lilly deal on diabetes. To bad they couldn't sell the whole company. My guess is if they can regain the momentum and get the stock price back up they will try and sell the company. That is a long way of saying it is a good buy at $10 and I would add it to the model if I could convince my partner to sell AVIR. V1