Hot Biotechs (fka HOTBIO)

[sarals]

greg,

Welcome to the wonderful world of biotech! I find it very fascinating and very satisfying to know that we are funding research and development of products that could cure people of diseases... and maybe we can even make some money too!

As to your question, yes, IMO biotech companies have been around enough to have some "gorillas". I'm not sure I'm expert enough to give you a definitive list, but I suspect Genentech would be one of them (don't rush out and buy that without some thorough DD, I think they recent had some bad news). Also, some of these companies already have products approved and have others just have products in their pipeline. Some companies have many projects in their pipeline and some have only one or two. I remember seeing a nice list of companies and what's in their pipeline... I'll try to find that and post a link to it here.

It's also helpful to understand what the risks are based on the Phase the project is in. Relatively, Phases I & II have a much higher rate of drop out, but even at the final stages the FDA could reject a product... that's where the high risk comes in.

Anyway, I hope you find this industry as interesting as I do and hope that we can be of help to you in getting started learning about it.

Sara
p.s. MotleyFool occassionally has a biotech seminar that's worth taking.