Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

IDIX:

This is so weird to see so much insider buy for a biotech co.

What’s more unusual than the recent insider buying is the Nov 2009 exercise and hold by David Standring (EVP, Biology) of 15K options that did not expire until Sep 2010.

Other than a potential tax benefit, there’s no upside to an insider’s exercising an option prematurely if the shares are simply going to be held. Hence, an insider has to be confident the share price won’t sink below the exercise price during the remainder of the option’s life for this kind of transaction to make sense.

In Standring’s case, the size of the exercise-and-hold transaction was only $15K; had it been a substantially larger transaction, I would have considered it strongly bullish.