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Biotech / Medical : Sepracor-Looks very promising -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RCMac who wrote (3185)	6/3/1999 4:42:00 PM
From: Asymmetric	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10280

Article in it's entirety: Chalk One Up for Sepracor's Shorts - An Undone Deal Amy Kover/Fortune When Sepracor hit $140 per share in March, it looked like vindication for the Boston biotech's controversial strategy: It cleans out unwanted molecules from blockbuster drugs, then licenses the improved version back to the original manufacturer for marketing. But as FORTUNE reported (One Hot Biotech, Jan. 11, 1999), short-sellers have also been watching Sepracor. Traders last fall shorted as much as 19.7% of the outstanding shares, betting that some of the company's highly publicized pharmaceutical deals would fall apart. Chalk one up for the shorts. Sepracor tumbled to around $60 in May after Johnson & Johnson decided not to help market norastemizole, the version of its allergy drug Hismanal that Sepracor is developing. Granted, that wasn't Sepracor's largest pipeline product. And the biotech still plans to launch norastemizole in two years. But the botched deal shook the Street's confidence. "Up until J&J, the majority of people believed that most deals were pretty solid," says Bear Stearns' David Maris, the only analyst until recently with anything less than a "buy" rating on Sepracor (and now the only one with an outright "sell"). One day after the J&J news, analysts shaved earnings estimates for 2000 by 24 cents, according to First Call. Three Sepracor board members have sold their holdings, and hedge fund manager Mike DiCarlo has completely wiped out his position for now. The superbulls still have faith in miracle drugs from Sepracor--or miracle stock prices. Salomon Smith Barney, Gruntal, and Morgan Stanley are keeping their "buys."