To: Biotech Jim who wrote (288 ) 10/3/1998 5:04:00 PM From: scaram(o)uche Respond to of 4974
Jim: First, enjoyed your comments entirely. I sort of thought that the NRGN chemistry was good enough to cover the merged entity (minus MLNM..... :-). Haven't looked at GLFD chem, no, not at all. They seem to be having some pronounced successes with AMGN. Have looked at SIBI and consider them to be ripe for control by a company with more (not better, please note) chemistry. Just trying to construct companies that have many more targets rolling through preclinical and early-stage human trials.... companies where the current depressed valuations could be supported by modest success with any one of 10 projects. I'd love to have a magic "merger" wand right now; we could distribute risk and create "with luck, we're a breakthrough" organizations. It is my dream to see another Amgen, but to have the research bucks thrown at SCIENCE instead of down the Thousand Oaks drain. Sure, I've looked at the MLNM burn. However, I feel that they've reached a point where the dollars are relatively efficient. I feel strongly about that..... the dollars rolling through the labs are more efficiently targeted at pharmaceuticals than in the vast majority of companies that I've studied. Time will tell if this will break down, but I was very impressed with the mid-level managers that I met. Chemistry is not a weakness among those who are there, and they're currently hiring to boost their pharma chem expertise. Bayer?? I started in the Bayer system. No comment, apart to say that if anyone can screw up a biotech project, it will be Wuppertal and Bayer. Levin has lots and lots of cash. I'm just afraid that, with the new targets, we'll return to a whole new era of "molecules in search of indications" (BTW, I coined that term). The initial clinical effort at HGSI sort of scares me in that regard. Cheers! Rick