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If that constitutes a threat then my wife deserves the electric chair. Immediately.
My youngest is finishing high school. We live in a large suburban area. Last week someone robbed a bank one mile away and they locked down the school.
IMO that was a bit of an over-reaction, but I understand it. They're nervous.
Interesting, never saw that one.
Hope everything is OK. With Sandy Hook fresh in everyone's mind, schools are hyper-hyper-vigilant. Maybe too much, but the alternative...
They lock the doors, put everyone in their classrooms, no one goes in or out. Most states use the term lockdown, they may use something different where you're at, same thing.
I was a teacher for many years.
Not lockout, lockdown.
Just kidding, of course, but I've got way more than I planned. BOL.
I have more than more than enough. Any more shares and I'll have to register with the SEC.
CLF: Thought it was going to turn around yesterday, but guess not.
Any thoughts?
Dynavax: The Path Forward...
My goal exactly, think it's very doable. BOL.
CLF: Do you set a price target for selling or just watch the action each day? TIA.
DVAX- I still agree with the CEO's comments at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conf. that sooner or later Heplisav will be the SOC.: two injections instead of three, efficacy, and yes--even safety.
But it's a longer-term investment, not a quick trade.
All IMHO, no position.
Friday I started a medium-sized position in XNPT.
I was trying to decide between a few stocks, and this analysis from a brand new website was the deciding factor:
http://www.biostockselite.com/index.php/public-library/17-xnpt-2-22-13
If it were to be CRL, I would have expected by Friday close.
The Battle Over China's Medical Device Market
http://www.pacificbridgemedical.com/publications/the-battle-over-chinas-medical-device-market/
By: by Ames Gross and Catherine Matacic
February 5, 2013
Published in Medical Device Daily
China’s $9 billion medical device market is growing very fast. It is now the sixth largest medical device market in the world, and analysts estimate it will grow between 15 - 20 percent annually over the next five years.
The country is home to nearly one-fifth of the world’s population. With 1.3 billion people and a burgeoning middle class, China has witnessed an unprecedented rise in healthcare consumption. More citizens are spending more money on healthcare, including sophisticated medical devices.
Further boosting demand is a growing number of Chinese with health insurance. From 2009 to 2011, China’s Ministry of Health invested $124 billion in the Chinese healthcare market. A large part of this went to bolster China’s expanding medical insurance system. That system, still poorly funded, now covers more than 95 percent of Chinese, including the nearly 900 million rural residents who previously lacked any real health insurance.
As the market has grown, so have available medical products and procedures. Now, sophisticated implantable devices are available, as well as advanced diagnostic imaging products. In 2010, these products made up half of China’s medical device market at 13 percent and 37 percent, respectively.
CHINESE COMPETITION
Competition for China’s medical device market is fierce. More Chinese medical device manufacturers enter the market every day, and local companies like Mindray, Microport and Lepu have quickly grown in size.
Revenues for Mindray, which makes low cost imaging systems and monitoring equipment, have gone up an average of 25 percent annually over the last five years. Sales for 2012 were more than $1 billion. The company got its start selling inexpensive medical equipment to low-tier Chinese hospitals. It ignored top-tier hospitals that bought premium equipment from companies like GE and Philips.
The idea that Chinese-made products are inferior is beginning to change. In spite of quality assurance problems and events like the 2008 heparin scare, overall quality systems in China are actually much better than five years ago. Most local medical device companies are ISO 13485 certified, and some even meet US FDA and EU Good Manufacturing Practice standards.
In the past, Chinese medical device manufacturers produced mostly Class I and Class II devices. But now, they are making more sophisticated Class III devices. [I did a little research to understand the difference. The FDA recognizes 3 classes of medical devices based on the level of control necessary to assure safety and effectiveness. Examples of Class I devices would be bandages and gloves; Class II would be powered wheelchairs and infusion pumps; Class III would be pacemakers and heart valves.]
This is partly due to the adoption of global manufacturing standards. It is also due to the innovation of Western-trained Chinese returnees. Many Chinese math, science and engineering PhD’s who cannot secure H1-B visas in the US return to China for work, where they are now snapped up by local device companies.
Components, design records and raw materials used by Chinese manufacturers do not always meet Western standards, but they are getting better. Infrastructure for device and drug production -- like clean rooms -- has also improved.
Chinese made products can now in many cases compete with Western devices. And with local practices including kickbacks to help sales, China based medical device manufacturers are giving foreign companies in China a real run for their money.
WESTERN COMPANIES IN CHINA
Western medical device companies still sell some sophisticated products that Chinese device manufacturers cannot make yet. As long as they can maintain this strong technical advantage, they will continue to increase sales for top of the line products. But Chinese medical device companies are quickly catching up in terms of innovation (and copying).
Pricing is another concern. Prices for many Chinese-made devices are much lower than those of their foreign competitors. For example, ultrasound machines made by Mindray are up to 45 percent cheaper than similar machines produced by Philips. In the case of drug-eluting stents (DES), cheaper Chinese products have taken over the market. Five years ago, foreign DES imports accounted for 75 percent of the DES market. But today, those numbers are reversed – local Chinese made products make up 75 percent of the DES market, while foreign device imports have dropped to 25 percent.
In order to compete with Chinese products, foreign medical device manufacturers need to offer basic, low-cost versions of their A-line products. To do this, some of them have set up their own China-based manufacturing facilities. Others have acquired Chinese companies with broad product portfolios and decent market shares.
Recently, US-based Stryker paid $764 million to acquire Chinese spine products manufacturer, Trauson. While Trauson is highly profitable, commanding first place in China’s trauma market and third in the spine products market, several reports put Trauson’s real value at about $350 million. In addition, Medtronic paid $755 million for China Kanghui Holdings last year, despite its estimated value of about $490 million. Several analysts wonder whether Western companies like Stryker and Medtronic have made good deals.
As acquisitions continue, questions remain. Will Western companies post worthwhile returns on these investments? Will Chinese executives who have made big money via stock sales honor their non-compete agreements? Will very different business cultures be able to co-exist within the same companies?
One solution is for foreign device companies to provide Chinese consumers better quality locally made products with fewer defects. Often times the quality assurance and regulatory affairs staff working at foreign medical device companies in China have been very well trained by their western counterparts. However, these Chinese RA/QA executives working at foreign medical device companies with Chinese operations can now earn $150,000 per year. Where did the notion of cheap labor go?
THE GLOBAL DEVICE FIGHT
Outside China, Western device manufacturers are now also engaged in a battle with Chinese medical device firms. Large Chinese device makers are increasingly exporting to emerging markets like Brazil, India and Russia -- countries where Western firms have also been trying to boost sales.
Lepu Medical Technology is one such Chinese company. Five years ago, none of its products were sold on global markets. But today, while 80 percent of its sales are in China, 20 percent are in the rest of the world.
CONCLUSION
In the short-term, foreign medical device companies still have an edge in China for sophisticated medical devices. Most Chinese who have money still prefer Western made medical devices. However, for the average Chinese making $5,000 per year, the use of devices made at local Chinese medical device companies will continue to grow quickly.
Foreign medical device companies will also have to nurture and retain their Western trained Chinese staff. In the future, as Western trained Chinese staff leave foreign medical device companies in China for local Chinese medical device companies, the fight over innovation, quality assurance, and know how will only get stronger.
In another five years, it is anybody’s guess who will win the Chinese device fight.
From the Q&A Board, if iHub is lagging between page reloads, it could be due to tracking cookies: #msg-84931168
I tried the opt-out feature suggested and it seems to help.
P.- Thanks much. Whether it's DVAX or any other stock, my pet peeve is mindless and manipulative bashing or pumping. As a very knowledgeable iHub poster likes to say, both just waste bandwidth.
Large investment firms spend millions seeking out both the bull and the bear cases on companies they're considering. No yelling or screaming, no over-emotional lying or pleading, no phrases like "going to the moon" or "my gut tells me." Instead a fact-based presentation of the buy or sell thesis, where clear evidence determines the decision.
Unfortunately this is generally not the message board culture, on iHub and many other sites. We instead see a one-sided, somewhat hysterical presentation more akin to a late-night infomercial than a business meeting. Only the very exaggerated bull position is tolerated, with even the most well-reasoned objections being labeled as bashing.
This is not the way to make financial decisions. Rant over.
I agree with you about the DVAX ADCOM: we'll probably never know what went on behind the scenes or fully comprehend all the politics and complex business relationships involved in the decision. It was a stinker!
I had a ridiculously large, short-term position that I was planning to sell immediately after the ADCOM. I was not willing to sell at $1.75 or $2 and take that kind of massive loss, and I felt reasonably certain that cooler heads would prevail and the PPS would rise from there. I was hoping that we'd see a move to the $4 area, but there was an obvious and firm ceiling around $3.
At that point it all became about my own personal risk/reward calculations. (I'm not trying to tell anyone else what to do, how would I know their individual investment standards?) This is such a crapshoot, it could go either way, and as much as I hated to take the loss it was preferable to the very real risk of a CRL and another drop to the $1.50 - $2 area.
If you or anyone else on the board is still holding I wish you well, I never root for someone to lose money, and you very well may be making the right decision and I'm going to be kicking myself next week when the stock goes to $5. But it was too dicey for me.
Best of luck!
CLF seems like a good speculation judging from that terribly oversold chart
That is too funny, what an excellent magician. Notice how one hand keeps returning under the counter while the other holds the pad and focuses their attention. He is good!
You've got that right.
Not just on iHub, but on every other major site. It's one of my pet peeves. I like to see someone unemotionally and logically laying out their thesis, either bull or bear, chart-based or fundamental.
Cut out all the childish, unprofessional name-calling, baseless pumping or bashing, flat-out lying: just state your case backed up by evidence.
I agree, I used to be quite the adrenaline junkie, but as I got older the attraction wore off. These days, this is more my sentiment:
"Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing."--Warren Buffett
Many people did open a position around there, IMO based on nothing but a wing and a prayer, no real background knowledge of the situation. Some wicked bad pumping going on, just full of misinformation.
Wasn't a good risk/reward for me, but it should be interesting and I certainly hope for you that it pops.
Well you are one brave man.
I sold the other day and took the loss, the Jefferies report was the final straw for me. Not to mention that the whole damn thing would have been on mind all weekend.
I assume that you wound up selling DVAX?
I lost track of who was saying what, but did you say that you do your own taxes!?!?!?
No way, I'd become an alcoholic/drug addict/nervous wreck in 24 hours.
By the way, I'm in awe of what you guys do on this board day after day. Been reading dav1234 on the Biotech Values board and followed him over here.
Most states actually already have a form of a consumption tax, it's called a sales tax.
But if you think about it, sales taxes are one example of a regressive tax, since poorer individuals are forced to pay a higher percentage of their income for clothing, transportation, and other daily essentials.
You could go to the next step, a luxury tax, but then who would be deciding what's a luxury and what isn't? Would be very tricky.
I hear what both of you are saying, and many people advocate that type of regressive tax, as opposed to our current progressive tax (the more you make the more you pay.)
The problem is that while a regressive tax rate appears to be a flat tax at first glance, this system is set up so that people with lower incomes are paying a higher percentage of their earnings in taxes.
Time for a Bass Ale!
In some CLF near the end of the day for $26.45.
FWIW, bought some CLF right at the end of the day for $26.45. Probably just a short-term bounce play, but we'll see.
With all due respect I very much disagree. A CRL will drop the price under $2 (which will be a good place to load.)
Best of luck.
I agree, AH today or PM Monday, no diff.
Yep, weird if not downright silly, of course they're connected!
Re DVAX: A pretty reliable person on Twitter got an email from the CEO's executive assistant:
"Just got an email from Dino's [the CEO] Executive Assistant, Victoria House, concerning the timing of FDA decision.
More or less said that the company will announce the FDA's findings next week and that the recent price action is unrelated."
So perhaps Monday instead of today?
Good Writing Workshop Twitter Quote:
"5 Atrocious Science Cliches: Holy grail, silver bullet, shedding light, missing link, paradigm shift. Bonus: breakthrough."
I'm sure that many here could add to the list!
Just to keep things accurate about Jeffries:
Here's the actual report:
https://javatar.bluematrix.com/docs/pdf/669ff326-2c16-4fdf-9086-34650156421f.pdf
They predict a CRL, a PPS drop, they'll buy on weakness.
They predict that DVAX will try again, will eventually get a broad label approval, and will have a PPS of $5 in 2015.
Questions for the board: I'm doing some DD on Aastrom Biosciences (NASDAQ: ASTM).
After an interview with execs at the JPM Healthcare Conf., Jason Napodano wrote (bolding mine):
I do not think we will see Aastrom change any of the inclusion/exclusion criteria for REVIVE. This is an incredibly well-designed program with significant feedback (special protocol assessment) from the FDA. Aastrom does not want to stray from its SPA agreement. However, what I think we will be seeing Aastrom do throughout the next few months is changing the lexicon around the inclusion/exclusion criteria. For example, instead of calling it “critical limb ischemia”, we may start hearing more “severe peripheral artery disease,” or instead of using the term “Rutherford-5", we may start hearing more “confirmed tissue loss.” These are the same patients, but with a more widely acceptable or obvious classification.
AF- All the best to you, a quick question on ALKS.
I've been taking a look at it and it certainly looks like this is a good point on the charts for a new buyer. Is this just a chart play for you or are you familiar with the fundamentals of the company/their business?
Also, I see that they're releasing 2012 full-year financials next Thursday, Feb. 28. Any predictions?
TIA. -ob
"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." --Michael Jordan
And one last thought on DVAX: I was up $50K in November, got a little greedy and tried to squeeze just a bit more out of it, and wound up losing $50K.
Moral of the story: don't be greedy.