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

To: Rocketman who wrote (6053)	11/29/1998 11:57:00 PM
From: Pseudo Biologist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9719

Re. <<Hell, since Sept 1st the Model has gone from $44.6K to $155K, that's a 250% gain in just 3 months>> Give yourself some credit; not all (any?) biotech funds or portfolios have done nearly as well (-huge understatement -g-); the gain also includes a couple of very well timed shorts. This week's Barron's has a couple of interesting article on the "internuts." In particular, it reckons AOL paid about 10X annualized sales for the "portal" piece of Netscape. Even assuming that this is fair value (paid with funny money AKA AOL's common), one can still come up with valuations for Infoseek, Yahoo, etc. that are several fold lower than their current market caps. Boy, did that sound like sour grapes -gg- Going back to biotech, I am not sure there is such a magic formula re. internal development vs. tool/service provider. A few companies have executed one or the other flavor very well (say, Biogen or Incyte, as examples), but I am not sure one group has done better than the other, in general. And re. <Now, if any body can combine the entrepreneurial environment and creativity of a good biotech in a big pharma setting, then you'd really have a hot property. I'm not holding my breath on that one though, too many stogy old farts in control.>> I hear you; even mid-size enterprises like Genentech, or even Amgen sans big Swiss daddy, have had a hard time nurturing and retaining those sneaker-wearing dudes; yep, don't hold your breath. Going back to the VD portfolio, it would be instructive, in the context of end-of-year review, to put the finger, if possible, on the factors that made this such a spectacular year. PB