Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Vector1 who wrote (5806)	10/23/1998 7:19:00 PM
From: Rocketman	Respond to of 9719

Here is the most recent San Diego Union article on AMLN: <<<<<<< A new round of unconvincing tests with Amylin Pharmaceuticals' top drug had many people on Wall Street writing the San Diego biotech's obituary yesterday. One day after Amylin said the latest trials of its pramlintide diabetes drug weren't strong enough to support government approval, the company's shares plunged 77 percent. Analysts said they weren't sure the company could recover. "Our opinion right now is that the drug is really dead," said analyst William Tanner of Vector Securities. Though Amylin said it would press forward with additional tests of pramlintide that are under way, the company is firing about 150 people, or 75 percent of its work force, to avoid running out of cash. But trials the company released last year failed to show substantial long-term benefits in adult diabetics, and analysts weren't much more enthusiastic about the new studies. While some patients did respond to the drug, the company said the results overall weren't strong enough to apply for government approvals. Tanner, who is discontinuing his coverage of the stock, said it could be the end of the line for the company unless the remaining trials produce much stronger results -- an outcome that would surprise him. "They're not of interest to anyone anymore," Tanner said. Amylin's strategy is to finish out two final studies of pramlintide in the hope that they will produce strong enough data to support Food and Drug Administration approval. The company also is continuing studies on an earlier-stage diabetes drug, exendin-4. But the company is running out of cash and is cutting costs in the hope that its remaining $25.1 million will hold out long enough to complete the pramlintide trials. In the most recent quarter, Amylin lost $16 million on $2.7 million in revenue. Not all observers have written the company off. Jim McCamant of the Medical Technology Stock Letter in Berkeley said data that showed the drug reduced blood glucose levels in some patients were encouraging to him and suggested that the drug would eventually gain approval. "The actual risk of it's not being a successful drug has not been increased by this," McCamant said. McCamant said the problem with the latest studies, which were conducted in Europe and Canada, was primarily in the way the data were analyzed. Amylin had agreed to an analysis in which regulators would look primarily at patients who received the highest dose of the drug, but patients in that group experienced greater side effects, including nausea and hypoglycemia. The data were better in patients who received lower doses of the drug, and McCamant said future studies that would look primarily at the lower doses could yield approval for the drug. McCamant said he believed the meltdown in Amylin's shares had largely been driven by the company's plan to fire three-quarters of its employees, which he said suggested a more serious crisis than the company actually faces. Though he said it was prudent to cut costs, he said that didn't necessarily indicate a lack of confidence in the drug. One major challenge the company had faced was to sign on a major pharmaceutical company as a partner to share some of the financial burden of the pramlintide work. The loss of Amylin's previous partner, Johnson &Johnson, dealt a heavy blow to the company earlier this year. But analysts said there isn't likely to be much interest from other drug companies unless Amylin produces new data that suggest the drug will win approval. Analyst Carl Gordon of OrbiMed Advisors in New York said the final set of trials with pramlintide would be make-or-break for the company, though he, too, said he wasn't expecting much. "Basically, the drug didn't work," Gordon said. "There's always some suggestion (the drug might work in certain patients), but you don't get infinite shots at this. You get one shot." >>>>>>>>>> Well, at least McCamant is still touting it, uh is that good or bad? I heard it is a Murphy stock too. Think they bring the price target down??? Of course these two have a real tendency to ride them into the ground. Rman