Robert Morris is helming a biotech-focused stock newsletter that’s called Biotech Supertrader (modesty has no place in the world of newsletter promotions, of course), and I’ve never covered this letter before so I thought I ought to have a look at the latest teaser we’ve been asked about.
Morris, incidentally, has been featured in our pages before — but that was back when he was editor of China Stock Insider at the same publisher. That letter, like almost all China-focused investment newsletters, seems to have disappeared quietly into that good night … which probably tells you that it’s time to invest in China again, since the newsletter publishers are ignoring the Middle Kingdom and rushing out their pitches about biotech and tech stocks. At the time, Morris was teasing NQ Mobile (NQ), which has turned out to be pretty good if you bought it down there in the $6-8 neighborhood (though it’s been a wild ride).
So now what’s he pitching for his Biotech Supertrader?
Well, the destruction of “Man’s deadliest disease”, of course. Here’s how the teaser gets our attention:
“This Tiny, Unknown Biotech is About to Unleash Its ‘Holy Grail’ Drug on Man’s Deadliest Disease
“Their ‘Guided Missile Approach’ Could Save Thousands of Lives Each Year
“It’s about to become the most talked about advancement in cancer treatment in our lifetimes and you can lock in a life-transforming fortune if you act quickly….
“I’m urging my subscribers to load up on this stock NOW….
“I’ve just uncovered a tiny, unknown biotechnology company with a new cancer drug in phase 3 clinical trials which is showing remarkable success at treating several types of cancer.
“Their scientists have found an innovative approach to cancer care which involves a breakthrough in treatment. It goes deep inside the inner workings of our cells.
“Plus, this medicine looks to be many times more effective and with fewer side effects than the chemo, radiation, and drug therapies currently available.”
If there’s one thing that investors know can make them rich and make them feel good about themselves and the world, it’s a cure for cancer — we’ve seen that effective cancer treatments can and do (occasionally) turn little biotech stocks into gigantic successes, so the dream lives on that you’re going to catch one of these lottery tickets and own the next Genentech. Will we be so lucky? Well, let’s see which one he’s pitching:
“When this drug wins FDA approval – which I believe it will – this small company’s $4.16 stock price will go straight to the moon.
“And the market for this drug is absolutely huge!
“You see, this small biotech is targeting its new drug, let’s call it ‘drug S’, at cancers of the blood and bone marrow. And it is already in very promising phase 3 trials for these two types of cancer.
“But here’s where it gets really interesting. It looks like the drug this company is developing will also work on other types of cancer!
“There are positive signs it works on Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) too. There are 1.1 million people with this type of malignancy. Just in the United States alone there are over 300,000 patients with this disease according to The American Cancer Society. Each desperate for a cure.
“Plus it looks like ‘drug S’ may turn out to be an effective treatment for ovarian Cancer. There are more than 204,000 new cases of ovarian cancer diagnosed worldwide each year with 22,280 of these in the United States according to the National Cancer Institute estimates.”
So … who is it? Thinkolator sez this is Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals (CYCC)
Cyclacel is indeed a little biotech around $4 (it closed at $4.35 yesterday), with a market capitalization of only about $80 million — so be careful, we’re a big enough group here that if just a small percentage of Stock Gumshoe readers got enthused about this stock it could drive the shares up, less than a million dollars worth of shares trade each day (Biotech Supertrader says they limited their readership to 750 people — I don’t know if that’s still their cap or if they’ve hit it, but we’ll have more folks than that reading this free article).
And like many biotech stocks, it’s got some impressive scientists and it’s been losing money for a long time as they’ve been searching for a viable drug (their current lead drug also was a big focus of theirs back when it was in Phase 1 trials five or more years ago, so that’s a good reminder of the time these things take, it’s just starting Phase 3 trials now). It looks like they must have gone public in 2004, when they were about eight years old, and a quick scan of ten years of their financials over at Morningstar indicates that they’ve never generated more than a token amount of revenue (meaning, they’ve probably had some research collaboration payments or partnership funding, but never got a product to market), and have accumulated more than $250 million in losses to date. And had two reverse splits to keep the price from sinking far into penny territory.
So that’s not unusual, but it means that — as with all developmental-stage biotechs — it’s not about the financials or the fundamentals, it’s about what’s going to happen in their clinical trials and whether things are going well enough that they can continue to finance the trials … which get much more expensive as you progress through Phase 2 and Phase 3.
All I know about them so far is that they say they’ve got enough cash to get through enrollment in their key Phase 3 study for “drug S” (which is sapacitabine) as of September when they last updated their investor presentation, but I know nothing about the science or the competing cancer drugs that are out there or how fabulous this particular one might be, so I asked our favorite medical writer, Doc Gumshoe (who, yes, is not a doctor) to check them out quickly and chime in. Here’s what he could share after looking into them for a few minutes (he’s just looking at the medical stuff, not so much the “investor presentations”):
- Cyclacel’s Prospects
Cyclacel has three drugs in development at this time, and is involved in eight clinical trials with these drugs, not including two clinical trials that have been terminated. Their top contender is sapacitabine which targets the division of cancer cells. If you can prevent cancer cells from dividing and reproducing, you have the cancer whipped, so targeting cancer cell division (or mitosis, which is the technical term) is a highly promising avenue for treating cancer. However, we need to take note of the fact that sapacitabine is one of a large number of drugs that propose to fight cancer by this method.
At present, all eight of Cyclacel’s clinical trials involve sapacitabine. Of these, at least one has been completed – a Phase 1 study of the safety and pharmacology of the drug. Four others are current, with no information about results. These are likely Phase 1 or small Phase 2 studies, to assess safety, determine what a correct dose might be, and evaluate whether the drug does what it’s supposed to do in human subjects with the target diseases, which in this case include acute myeloid leukemia (AML), cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, and some advanced solid tumors. Prior to the clinical trials, sapacitabine has demonstrated impressive results in delaying the spread of metastatic liver cancers in mice.
From what I can gather from public sources (i.e., the NIH Clinical Trials Registry), there is one Phase 3 trial, which started recruiting patients in February of 2013 and is expected to be completed in late 2015. The trial is in elderly patients with AML, and compares alternating cycles of sapacitabine and decitabine with decitabine alone. Decitabine (Dacogen) is FDA-approved for treating AML and also targets cancer cells’ replication by attacking their DNA.
It is possible that the Phase 3 trial by itself could lead to FDA approval for sapacitabine, depending on the strength of the results. However, that trial would not get the drug approved for use as monotherapy, since it is not being investigated as monotherapy. My guess is that Cyclacel is planning more trials of sapacitabine as monotherapy, perhaps in younger patients. And my further guess is that FDA approval is still quite a long way off.
Sapacitabine is also in a Phase 3 trial with cyclophosphamide and rituximab for the treatment of relapsed chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Cyclophosphamide (marketed under several trade names) is a well-established chemotherapy agent used in a number of cancers, and has led to remission in many cases; however, it is associated with truly harrowing adverse effects. Rituximab (Rituxan, Genentech) is used not only in cancers but in some autoimmune diseases. And sapacitabine is also being studied in patients with previously-treated non-small-cell lung cancers.
Although the piece from Biotech Supertrader said that the drug – identified as “drug S” –is also a promising treatment for ovarian cancer, I find no clue that it is being studied in such patients. [ed note: that’s because that “promise” is in the lab still, not in people — they had a press release about this in the Fall, “75% of Ovarian Cancer Patient Samples Highly Sensitive to Sapacitabine”, not studied in patients but on patient samples]
Cyclacel has two other drugs in development: selicilib and a drug designated as CYC116. One selicilib study has been terminated, and in a second Phase 1 study, selicilib is used with sapacitabine in patients with advanced solid tumors. Remember, however, that Phase 1 studies are many rungs of the ladder below what’s needed to gain FDA approval.
CYC116 is an aurora kinase inhibitor, meaning that it blocks the action of an intracellular enzyme that facilitates cancer cell mitosis. This is a promising avenue of cancer treatment, however, the traffic on this avenue is fairly heavy, and includes several other classes of drugs including tyrosine kinase inhibitors, and taxol based agents such as paclitaxel (Taxol, Bristol Myers Squibb); docetaxel (Taxotere, Sanofi-Aventis), Abraxane (a newer formulation of paclitaxel from Celgene) and others.
CYC116 supposedly also inhibits vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which induces the growth of blood vessels that nourish cancer cells. Inhibiting VEGF is a well-established means of combating cancer, and CYC116 could hardly be characterized as a radically new departure in cancer treatment.
The one trial involving this agent has been terminated. That, of course, does not mean that development of CYC116 stops dead in its tracks – there are many reasons why a trial can be terminated, and ours is not to speculate without more information.
Beyond those three drugs, it’s hard to guess what Cyclacel may have up its corporate sleeve. It is certainly true that a successful cancer drug – even if only moderately successful– can be transformational for the biotech that develops the drug. But the drugs that Cyclacel has under development do not appear to this skeptical observer to be radically new departures in cancer treatment.
It’s important to remember, when trying to estimate the likelihood of a single drug demonstrating sufficient efficacy and safety to gain FDA approval and market share, that the competitive field is vast. As I mentioned earlier, Cyclacel has a total of 8 clinical trials in process at this time.
For the sake of perspective, it’s worth knowing that at present there are 41,445 cancer trials being conducted. So those are the odds.
So there you have it — it’s almost impossible to find a development-stage biotech whose financials look great or that makes your heart go pit-a-pat over their valuation, especially in a biotech bull market like we’ve seen over the past year or so, and Cyclacel doesn’t jump out as spectacular on that front either, not unless you’re a big believer in the promise of their specific drug. They’re a small stock and they don’t get much attention, other than from the analysts who probably helped them sell shares in secondary offerings in recent years, and there aren’t any major “skin in the game” insiders as far as I can tell (the CEO owns $1 million worth of shares, but he gets paid more than that every year), and there’s only one really focused owner on the institutional side that seems to have any kind of biotech focus (Eastern Capital owns about 7% of the shares, roughly $5 million worth … don’t know much about them).
So I don’t see a lot to make them stand out other than Robert Morris’ apparent enthusiasm for the shares (which certainly goes over the top, he calls his special report “The End of Cancer Worries Forever“), and I don’t know enough about the science to be a believer (though, to be fair, I almost never speculate on developmental biotechs because they’re so hit-driven and I’m not smart enough to be a hit-picker in the sector). It is at least encouraging that they are enrolling patients for Phase 3, and that they probably won’t have to raise more money before they have some indication of how the trial is going, but sometime in the next year or two they’re probably going to have to either get good results from this trial that let them raise cash at a good price, or have promising enough results that some big pharma company wants to jump in and help fund development of “drug S” (or just buy up the whole company, as happens with some regularity when a little biotech gets promising results).
Oh, and they are presenting at an investor conference next week, so maybe they’ll have something interesting to share then. As you can tell, this one doesn’t jump into my cup of tea … but these kinds of stocks almost never do. Sound interesting to you? Interested in the science or the lottery-ticket possibilities of $80-million developmental biotechs? Have any experience with Robert Morris or know whether or not we should consider him a biotech savant? Let us know with a comment below.
Karma Have you been following Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome MERS a corona virus similar to Sars? Apparently it is a recent crossover from camel to human. Is there any treatment for SARS yet developed & is anyone working on it? Does this bear watching?
What I was stumbling around asking is, has anyone done anything promising in a vaccine for corona viruses. I admit great ignorance in virus vaccine methodology.
Frank: because it’s a coronavirus, which is RNA, + sense virus, as is HCV, it responds to treatment with interferon-alpha2 and ribavirin, just as HCV does. I have read that three quarters of Saudi camels are infected. Viruses this virulent have a way of getting attenuated, growing tamer, but still it is a frightening illness. Ugliness happens when people and animals are in proximity and viruses make the leap. I am not aware of anybody devising anything new or original for it.
Thank you Karma , I am quite fearful of something like marburg or bird flu breaking out either spontaneously or some nations brilliant idea to weaponize something like corona.
GILD is spending lots of $$$$$ advertising there HepC product & also
Establishing a presence against Benetec or acting on recent treatment combo?
Found part of my question. They adv. website hepchope.com & from there they take you to site pushing Sovaldi or Sofosbuvir. At present about $82 , too much for my self imposed limit on share price. website should have been after ‘also’ above but did not print
‘approval’ should be placed after combo. I think I need a new keyboard.
There has been a lot of discussion here regarding PRAN (Prana Biotech). There is an interesting article today in SA from an author that has been bullish on the stock, Michael Sacerdote….however:
“Prana Biotechnology Limited (PRAN) is expected to release the results from its phase 2b IMAGINE trial of PBT2 for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease within the coming month. Immediately prior to the results announcement from the Reach2HD trial, I discussed the scientific basis for believing that PBT2 addresses the pathophysiology underlying Alzheimer’s disease. Although the Reach2HD results were thrilling inasmuch as they offered the possibility that PBT2 might have efficacy, they were distinctly underwhelming compared to the dazzling results seen in mice. The best explanation I have for the discrepancy between the animal and human results in Huntington’s disease is that Prana is underdosing patients, possibly by as much as a factor of 10. As a consequence, we are likely to see an ambiguous result from the IMAGINE trial. Existing shareholders will be diluted as the company needs to raise capital or enter partnerships to fund subsequent trials. My estimate of pre-result risk-adjusted net present value is now reduced from $9.60/share to $4.80-$7.20.”
This was his opening comments. The whole article can be seen here:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2062823-prana-right-drug-wrong-dose?source=yahoo
Wow… skipping over the most basic and simple reasons for the drug to fail to hop right to a drug dose conclusion. More reasonable conclusions are:
1. the metal hypothesis is wrong. I firmly believe this and will be stunned if it is correct.
2. mouse models do not translate to human and there is no reasonable Alzheimers mouse models so any predictions that this drug can help humans based off of these mouse models are flawed. A few of the models out there do look at a single aspect of the disease (ex for tauopathies, TG4510), but most are poor and there are no integrated models.
3. the patient population is way too late in the disease progression. This is a common problem with Alz trials and is why the familial trial is being done in S. America with the anti-A-Beta antibodies.
As an aside, basing drug dosing on mouse efficacy models nearly always leads to failure. Only in a few cases (mostly anti-infectives), can preclinical work reasonably predict the efficacy based variable in clinical dosing (the rest is drug absorption, metabolism, off target effects and safety).
That said, if there is a hint of efficacy, they will: increase dose and try to get patients earlier in the disease (pre-MCI)
George: I agree totally. The metal hypothesis is high silliness, evinced, if by nothing else, by the fact that every few years there is a new fulmination about a new metal that must be causing neurologic disease. After you watch a few of these ideas become au courant, the Next Big Thing, and then flame out, you grow weary and skeptical. As with many liver diseases, metal accumulation is a manifestation of something else, not the cause of the thing in question. The peroxynitrite hypothesis, and the idea that metals enable peroxynitrite formation, is mystical voodoo, an idea that had vague circumstantial support 12 years ago and has since been overturned. People in PRAN may make money in PRAN, but that to me does not make it a good investment or a safe one. I want to be in companies that do not keep me up worrying. Seeking Alpha is a forum where a lot of highly debunkable nonsense gets by editors without any suspicion. I always marvel that there are people out there, CFAs, people in non-medical, non-scientific disciplines, who feel that they, as an amateur, can make pharmacologic and biologic arguments about things they have not spent years immersed in and be taken seriously. If these were easy topics, graduate and professional degrees would take months rather than years to complete. You cannot be a historian and expect to hold scientific sway when you arguments never face peer review, when you have never sequenced a gene or even piloted a pipetteman. I am weary of writers who download paragraphs from company websites and take clips from papers and weave these together as if they are credible scientific arguments that they understand. A great hallmark of intelligence is being in awe of how much you do not know, but such awe is in short supply at Seeking Alpha.
Er?…I think Ill wait a bit.
A story I use to explain the metal effect on Alz: Blaming metals for causing Alz is like coming upon a lake with a toxic spill and lots of dead fish, then blaming the dead fish for the toxic spill.
To $$ViaTheHelix:
Sorry for the late response. I was not on yesterday.
The FDA Tracker I am following lists those dates as “completion dates”. No indication included as to their durations.
Thanks Brian- But you need to be on when I need you on. Everybody needs to be on when I need them on! lol
Despite the Putin effect, RNN now seems really to have the wind at its back.
Putin’s machinations are serious, and as with other problems, where has Obama been? He said nothing at all til Russian helicopters were menacing Kyiv. Now we have a veritable Taiwan 1949 scenario going on, with Crimea purporting to be the true seat of power for the rest. People inside Russia tell me that Putin basically had to do this because a loss of Ukraine would be perceived as weakness, and few people have as many internal enemies as he does. Also, Sebastopol is of strategic importance. But here nobody wins. If Ukraine splits at the Dnieper and the west goes to the EU, it will not be able to tolerate taxes and demands to modernize its indolent, bribe-suffused business practices. People east of the Dnieper would probably not fight being subsumed into Russia. Ukraine is an odd place…not third world, but first world by no means.
I had just noticed some black on my S’trade acct. and it was RNN. Right now up about 9 cents. Loooove that color black.
Ken
There was an amusing article on BBC this week. UK started a TV show called Spitting Images (a political satire using rubber masked charactures)…….it went global. The producer trained each new country. Ukraine was due Monday but the Russians pulled rank and muscled into the diary. So the producer had to ring Ukraine an say ”Im so sorry, could you wait till they have gone? The Ukies replied ‘ No problem…we’ve waited 40 years or the Russians to leave….whats another week? 🙂
Dr KSS; I see no good coming from this. The BUSH/OBAMA combo has done much to destroy US credibility. Bush did not know when to stop & Obama doesn’t know how to stop. It is dangerous for world to perceive US as weak as it seems. May encourage someone to push Obama to employ drone diplomacy & ignite something no one wants.
So right on Bush/Obama! Couldn’t have had worse and now this! We’ve been lectured by the media and federal govt agencies about the EVILLLSS of bullying. Comes now Putin, the Bully, and the govt doesn’t know what to do! or not do. or… whatever. Everybody over the age of 60 (?) knows how to stop a bully: give him a hard, sharp punch in the nose, then pick him up, dust him off and warn him never to do that again.
Whoah there!!!! Would you happily have sent your son/grandson off to lose his legs by ‘dusting off’ Sodhim Hussien or Afghanistan. What has that achieved?
This bully has got as many nukes as you have. Chill and leave it to the most powerful weapon in the world……. MONEY. Financial siege works better than bullets and costs NO lives. It brought the whole Communist world to collapse. Ukraine is just a last fragment.
to Siva, I’ve been checking insider activity, they’re dumping shares by 100,000 at PTN. A bit concerning… are you aware of something?
??? what stock?
Er?….PTN?
Jacklec: One of the SEC filing flashed on me last week. When I checked, it was a sale by BVF partners. I didn’t think it was significant. But after reading your message and Dr. KSS message, I went through the SEC filing over the last 2 months.
It appears that BVF partners have unloaded all of their investment. In the mean time, three other companies have loaded them as below
First Eagle Investment Management – 1,525,000 shares – 2/13/2014
Great Point Partners – 2,337,000 shares – 12/31/2013
Deerfield Mgmt – 5,250,000 shares – 12/31/2013
I’m not aware of any events why BVF may have unloaded but can only guess to be their usual trading.
On the other hand, I as Dr. KSS do not know why they would need more than 18m they have on hand for P3 trials. In the event they are not able to find an US partner, they will dilute. If they find a partner and announce, the shares can be on a crazy run as it has a much smaller float. I have a started position already, will load anything under $1. Also note that they will announce the European partner by March.
Thank you siva for these clarifications
However it looks like BVF hasn’t unloaded all its shares yet: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/911216/000092189514000458/xslF345X03/form407422010_03032014.xml
However they did seel a lot in the last weeks, so might be an ongoing process.
If you’re used to read these forms, Do you know why they broke their holdings in palatin into 3 lines?
I think Siva has been fundamentally correct in his formulation of Palatin (PTN). I am waiting for what I think will be a dilutive event, as they say they must raise capital for the phase III study. I believe it was in this space that Siva and I agreed that we did not see why they needed so much money: they have $18-20 million on hand, and the bremelanotide study is not a costly study to do. The entity that sold 306,000 shares recently still holds a massive position in PTN; it sold less than 10 per cent of its holding. This is a drug where design of the phase III study (they need to focus on women with hypoactive desire) will determine all. This kind of study is fraught with high placebo effect rates. But I genuinely believe the drug works. Remember, the thing that set this drug development in motion was that it was being given to male volunteers as a sunless tanning product. And all the volunteers kept getting erections…..
If any of those sexually hyper active ladies want to give me a good tanning, my email is Randy@Yahoo.dot cum
Hey Alan. Don’t bring my name into this!
I met someone else on another thread called Randy Katz….no relative I suppose? Meow!
On a shelf @ Rite-Aid…Echard, ….CVS,…..Walgrens,……??????
Lesser expensive on my buy list:
ABIO-1.85, APDN-.14, GTHP-.55, SCTPF- .53, SNGX- 2.15, OMBP- .34, CYRX- .53, LEDF- .42, ARDM- .29, ADMD- .055.
BOT today: ZMSPF- .85 Totally off subject but couldn’t resist. Sold some OXBT to afford.
Frank: It’s true. A lot of really intelligent Russians have said that Putin felt emboldened to do this because he knows Obama is so weak. Putin smartly outmaneuvered Obama on Syria and made Obama look foolish. Putin is a tough nut to crack: he is very very emotional and passionate, but then knows how to step way back from those emotions and implement things with cold detachment. Obama, meanwhile, has no passion.
My big thing about Bush is taken from professionally dealing with scores of addicts. Bush was, I believe, our only sitting President (at least during my life) with an active substance abuse problem. I assert this based on how he functioned and lived. The biggest tip-off is that he was surrounded by enabling, in fact deeply enabling people, Rice, Cheney, Fleischer. These were people prepared to be bulldogs, fight off enemies, lash out for Bush when no one needed lashing out at. Where there is addiction, there are always enablers. When I see a new patient who is married, I often find it very useful to have the spouse present for the first interview. Say it is a female patient and I am concerned that she drinks to excess. If I ask her “Do you drink any alcohol?”, and her husband pipes up and says “My wife DOESN”T drink,” well, bingo, you have made your diagnosis. The wife is an alcoholic. Look for the co-dependent person. When you find a person acting co-dependently, you ALWAYS find an addict. BUsh is known to have been hooked on alcohol and cocaine before election. He was often impulsive and unaccountable in decisions, and to me there was more chaos in the WH when he was there than I have ever seen. Where there is chaos there are addicts. They thrive on chaos. Chaos keeps others fooled. Bush may have spent as much as 30 per cent of his presidency on vacation, much of it at Crawford, and among doctors who deal with addicts, clearing brush at Crawford is a new euphemism for drying out. I truly think that is what going to Texas was all about. He made too many decisions in a state of derepression. HIs rationale for going into Iraq? He stormed into Condi’s office and said “F–k Saddam. MAKE UP a reason for going after him!” A witness to that conversation has written this.
Karma I could not agree more, I have a lot of experience dealing with addicts on the street level & have come to the conclusion that once started always affected. Removes rationality from their way of thinking.
Off topic, but important. Didn’t know that about Bush, but I’m familiar with alcoholism. Worried about my husband’s apparent problem, I attended an Al-Anon meeting to see how to deal with it. The lesson? I WAS THE ALCOHOLIC! Hearing the people there describe their spouses, I recognized myself and stopped drinking on the spot. This worried my husband, who seemed worried that I had become stronger than he was. He stopped drinking a few months later. Our lives and our marriage improved immeasurably. In fact, we went through the same thing with smoking, a year or so later. Enabling is a b*tch, but fighting back often works.
JO Good for you. Personal observation has led me to believe that recovering/recovered alcoholics often gain better thinking ability than pre-addiction. I might say that fighting back is the only thing that works.
Good for you (both) Jo. :))))
I believe this thread is much more productive when the talk concerns biotech instead of politics. I was somewhat surprised to see not one post concerning the Benitech drop today. It doesn’t appear in any way to be overblown as the price was stable most of the day, but it makes me wonder … are some of the expressed long term bulls selling here to maybe buy back later?
If anyone needs new food … any thoughts on Navidea (NAVB)? They have a priority review from the FDA covering Lymphoseek for new indications due in late May or June.
Jim I understand what you say but believe me , if someone sets off a dirty bomb in any US city your life will change in ways you cannot imagine & you can kiss the stockmarket goodbye. 2007/08 drop will be like flatulence in a typhoon.
May I suggest you check discussion thread The eyes and ears team for bio trials Where we hope relevant info to investing will be found.
Jim,
I cant agree with you more. It is sad to see people make political statements instead of sticking to the great conversation here.
Jagadish
NAVB…I owned. “Debbie Downer” , Adam Fuerstein (The Street, Cramer’s public company) announced he doesn’t like for some technical reasons, and I sold. He’s one of my 150 biotech Twitter, closest friends and has 30,000 followers. I crossed swords with him one day and he came back with “Rob, I have 30k followers, you have 7”. My answer was, “Give me a break, I’m a lighting salesman. Who needs followers.”
THANKS Laughter is better than drugs.
I apologize for continuing with one more political comment, but I’ll keep it brief.
Dr. KSS, I have all the respect in the world for your vast knowledge, and you could be spot on about Bush, but it seems to me that you are assuming an awful lot. I am no Bush fan but Obama readily admits to having been a heavy Cocaine user for many years. I definitely agree though, that Putin is taking advantage of Obama’s weakness and incompetence, and also agree with Alan that the US focus should have been through monetary policy. Reagan defeated Gorbachev/USSR by showing STRENGTH in building up both our economy and military, whereas Obama is doing the exact opposite in decimating them.
I would encourage people not to be in NAVB. Lymphiscintigraphy is a decades-old technique, and this company is burning through millions to get new indications for a Tc99 agent that only slightly refines the technique. Frankly I am not sure the technique needs refining or new agents. Lymphoseek is already approved in breast Ca and melanoma, but the stock is dead. It is developing neuroimaging agents but other companies have a lead and have very good agents for this. I think the only reason short interest here is not higher than 15 per cent is that shares are so beaten back from their highs of 2 years ago. If this company ever gets out of this rut, and it may not, it will take a long time.
Benitec closed at $1.82 which is like A$2.04. I believe we will be range bound for sometime. $1.65 is a good support i see and resistance in the $1.90 range here! When you are in for the long haul this does not matter. However i will look for any buying opportunity if it arises!
Sold Xencor(90%) and RXII (1/3 my holding) with 25% profit on Xencor and 40% on RXII.
Dan, you could be right and I am no Obama admirer, and Obama needs to be screened for HCV as he is at high risk. But he was forthcoming about his indulgences. My comment about Bush was made on the basis of the fact that when he was in office, his behavior, the way his handlers worked, reminded me precisely of the addicts I deal with: the ones that show up in the office, accompanied by three co-dependent friends who argue on the patient’s behalf and explain that the patient’s urine just could NOT show benzoylecgonine ( a cocaine metabolite), Drama, theater. At least we do not have that with Obama. Obama is not now behaving as an addict thought neither is he behaving as a leader. Had this country shown more strength, certainly this ugliness might be different in Kyiv and Crimea. We evinced no concern for weeks leading up to this. Certainly there are many reasons the USSR fell, and why it fell depends on whom you ask. The Russian version of events is first that it had become unwieldy, unmanageable. But to Russians, Gorbachev was not a leader at all. He speaks Russian with an extraordinarily provincial accent that was offputting to many, and the average Russian can be quite educated. Russians view themselves as having brought about the demise because mostly they overwhelmingly wanted it. Anyway, I brought up Putin because that is what nixed stocks today.
Meanwhile….back at the stock exchange, the Dow rose 1.2pts today @ …….
In my opinion, the stock market is the place where economics, politics and government meet. Each one influences the other two in strange and complex ways.
JO Wisely said,If we defined religion as any deeply held belief system we might well find their nose prints in same trough.