aiming, see the post below: on my mo-sheen it shows 825,303,161 recos. obviously, there can be technical glitches w/ yahoo (i've seen negative recos as well).

http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&board=7076691&tid=ceph&sid=7076691&acti...

But then why would management be pushing the 1-4% mentioned?

I don't know. Maybe they're telling the truth ;)
It just seems to me that old-style food companies will have razor thin margins and they won't be able to give up a 1% royalty. The only way they could is if

a) the flavor enhancers substantially expanded their markets (very unlikely) and/or
b) the flavor enhancers substantially reduced production costs (i don't know enough about the business of food production to comment on this one)

This also reminds me a little bit of the genomics 'revolution' of the late 90's. You have a new fancy high-throughput screening process that will revolutionize the industry going up against the old-fashioned stuck-in-their-ways flavor chemists. Not to say that the genomics companies didn't shine for a while, but it pays to remember who won that fight.

Going back to the 2-4% royalty. I'd love to hear EXACTLY how they phrase this. I've seen business development people turn bulls*** and loop-hole threading into an art-form.

alohadan--snmx

a couple of points. in general, the scientific background of the company seems v. solid. they have good science and scientists behind them.

in a previous life, i helped to run a program that was trying to use biotechnology to create additives to enhance the efficacy of a number of high-volume industrial/medical/etc products (i.e. toothpaste, catheters, contact lenses, etc).
the toothpaste manufacturers seem most analagous (although not completely) to the snmx customers. In our case, the toothpaste companies were NEVER going to give us a 1% royalty on sales. At best, 10-fold lower.

I think snmx is a good company (as far as the science is concerned), but I would not bank on a 1% royalty from their customers.

Also, they need those GRAS designations because their customers (i.e. Campbell's soup, MacDonald's) are by nature conservative, high-volume, low-margin businesses (just like toothpaste). Any hint of regulatory headaches and they'll walk.

Also, I was naive during my 'toothpaste days'. I figured that once we made a compound that did ____ in our in vitro tests, that it was a hop, skip & jump to making a product.

Then we spoke with the interested toothpaste makers and got more detailed compound specs...like the compound must be stable at extreme pH (because of the manufacturing process), the compound must be 20% retained on tooth enamel 4 hours after brushing (do you know the rate of saliva flow over the gum? it's fast), etc. etc. etc.

I'm not saying MickeyD's will have the same stringent specs that other industrial giants, but don't fall into the trap of thinking that a GRAS compound that works in the lab will also work after being processed into a chicken mcnugget.

anyway. Food (flavor) for thought.

I had a 28% return this year (a lot of it realized).

Part of this was due to the fact that I liquidated some of my positions when I *thought* I was going to buy some real estate. The real estate deal fell through, and the stocks that I had liquidated promptly tanked in the traditional biotech summer swoon--leaving me w/ realized gains but also allowing me to buy back in at substantially lower prices.

As they say...Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

I also made decent 'income' selling covered calls. But even one of these sales ended up costing me a little bit.

I sold covered calls ($30 strike) against my QLTI position (I bought @ $15). I was more than happy to be holding the open call position when QLT briefly popped over 30 this year, thinking that I would have my shares called away. Unfortunately, QLT quickly and steadily tanked and I refused to close my call position until they expired. By the time they expired QLT was @ 23.5--penny wise, pound foolish.

As far as losses, my biggest was ICOS. bought @ 35...sold @ 28. Then bought back in @ 25.

I agree pretty much with everything pgs said though. Selling those D-day losers ASAP has given me much more peace of mind than holding onto them and praying for a bounce.

Can someone explain to me why there has been no documented history of cardiac events in the OTC NSAIDS (other than aspirin)? After all, they inhibit COX-2 as well?

it may not be inhibition of cox2 that is responsible for the increased likelihood of cardiovascular 'events'.
I don't know how easy this would be to test in an animal model (especially since the probability of a 'CE' is so low even with the Cox-2 inhibitors).


but here are possible explanations (not mutually exclusive).

1. selective cox-2 inhibitors like cel & vio also inadvertently interact w/ some other molecule responsible for increasing likelihood of severe cardiovascular 'events' (i.e. it's not that they're cox-2 inhibitors, it's that they are also inadvertently XYZABC inhibitors(or activators) and the OTHER nsaids aren't (tho naproxen is getting hit now, too).
2. other nsaids don't partition to the proper tissues (e.g. heart?) to the same degree that vio & perhaps cel do (there's probably empirical data out there that speaks to whether this is true or not)
3. other nsaids do increase the likelihood of a 'CE' by inhibiting cox-2, but this is more than counteracted by their ability to do (insert cardioprotective activity here).
4. pgs likely has 600 other explanations.

cel & vio are structurally very similar and so it's not surprising that they might have similar efficacy AND side-effect profiles.
the other nsaid's aren't structurally related to cel & vio.

Dew, thanks for the explanation(s).

Obviously, the point at which you assign actual probabilities (e.g. 16% for failure of ISEL) is part intuition and part number crunching.

As you stated, most people (including me) tend to do this implicitly...although on occasion I'll do it explicitly (i've done so for IMCL in the late 90's and did reasonably well before the Waksal wipeout).

It helps to have been a math major (which I believe you were, and which I'm certain I was not).

As for message-boards, I've kicked around writing a book about the various stock message-boards that are out there. Each has its own personality.

e.g. ENMD in the late 90's early 00's was completely and rabidly delusional, and worthy of psychological study.

IMCL has high-volume posting and reminds me of the house of commons in England--lots of shouting and harrumphing, but filled with colorful and occasionally insightful characters.

QLT is primarily a junkyard filled with bullies.

ELN is super-high-volume where everyone has a finger ready to press the recommend button.

MLNM has one god (boronate) and various accountant-type demigods (e.g. expos_twins_world_series), and is otherwise a waste of time.

Anyway, thanks again,

Best Regards

-tba


fwiw, here are *some* of my favorite posters (in no particular order)

boronate -god of mlnm board
chem24_2000
denice_daimara
dougheruing--just sounds smart, doesn't he?
mbkennel--friggin smart
minus2kelvin
mr_ernie_man
payshunned-sane qlt investor
southamptonny--vicious but usually accurate
suransuran--dispassionate cold analysis
vaevcts--moments of humor
davida_usa
scotthall1--celg's answer to boronate
dewdiligence--the most assiduous gatherer of data i know of

Dew, regarding your backgammon style likelihood analysis,

Now that the ISEL results are public, I'm curious as to what data you crunched and how you crunched it to come up with your likelihood analysis that you previously posted here.

I'm not sure if this is proprietary or something that you want to keep private (in which case i'm sure you will think of an elegant and polite way of not answering), otherwise I'd be curious to know.

Also, FWIW businessman(whatever his name is) on the IMCL board doesn't write like I would expect Icahn to write. Specifically, I believe Icahn was born in NY & graduated from Princeton. businessmanxyz's English grammar seems more like that of a Viennese bodybuilder, if you get my drift. But you seem to have additional information here that I do not. So, as I say, FWIW.