Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Luck or skill?

>You gotta admit though that this one was more luck than anything else.<

Luck clearly played a role, but not the central role, IMO. Why didn’t it? Because IDIX is a bona fide drug-discovery company and is one of the best drug-discovery companies in the industry with an antiviral focus. If not for this crucial element of the story, I would have sold my shares in 2007.

Unlike the crappy “virtual” biotech companies that some readers of this board seem to favor, a clinical failure such as the one IDIX had in 2007 is not fatal because there is usually a next-generation drug waiting in the wings. This was exactly the case with IDIX: IDX184, the follow-on compound to NM283 in HCV, is already in clinical trials, which is an impressively fast transition.

I did luck out by having IDIX make faster progress than anyone expected in HIV with the lead compound, IDX899. This enabled investors to overlook the commercial failure in HBV with Tyzeka. It also helped that IDIX offloaded all HBV activities to NVS in late 2007; this allowed IDIX to not have to talk about HBV at investor presentations.



<font size=2><font color=red>“The efficient-market hypothesis may be
the foremost piece of B.S. ever promulgated
in any area of human knowledge!”