Aratana Therapeutics Inc (fka PETX)

[terry hallinan]

Not a single large successful company was a sellout.

Sure the vultures gather when they smell success and maybe Aratana will sellout but it is nothing like the best way to success.

I am still awed by Merck paying $1.3B for a second-rate antisense biotech with a horrendous record of failure and still in early clinical stages. It took about a year for Merck to abandon the entire field.

Barron's way back when it was worth reading regularly laughed at another terrible flop by a JNJ acquisition. Even I got saved from a calamity. Bizarre was the failure of JNJ in acquisitions despite excellent management for a dumbo otherwise.

When you get around to it, kindly explain why Aratana succeeded brilliantly with that EP4 receptor that has been around for a long time. Even the Japanese company whose position in the receptor Aratana licensed had nothing on or near market from appearances.

The giant pharmaceuticals depend on innovation from the tiny tykes. Way it has always been. Does nobody read Adam Smith these days? Do people even know who he was?

JMO.

Best, Terry