Biotech Values

[TastyTheElf]

he numbers game is a complete comedy.

I think that's a little strong. There are reasonableness bounds, and it's about the odds, not certainty.

I hope I never buy into this attitude that seems pervasive here that if there's a bear case, the investment is a dud.

It's all about figuring out what's a material fact in a given situation, rather than just applying kneejerk maxims to everything. That takes work, however -- pontificating is so much easier.

(People actually take Feuerstein's contention about KERX and perifosine (sp?) seriously.... that is, that we should assume the trial will fail because small cap companies have a bad track record with Phase III trials in cancer, and that the fact that KERX hasn't been bought proves the drug is a dud, early trial results notwithstanding. He doesn't even take into account the current economic/market conditions, which are a multiple standard deviation influence on corporate behavior. KERX hasn't been bought most likely because the market has pushed market value too far from KERX mgmt's sense of a fair price for the technology. If it were 2005, they'd have probably been bought by now.)

To the point about RFA improvements -- that is absolutely true. And hard to gauge the extent of it.

My modeling assumption is 18 months on the control arm. I think that is a one-standard deviation conservative assumption (meaning, about 80% chance of not being too low).