Biotech Values

[iwfal]

Many investors are going to lose a lot of money investing in cancer-drug candidates that lack the differentiation to become big-selling drugs. Of course, each investor thinks this will happen only to other investors and that one can avoid such a fate by being cleverer and more nimble than the others. #msg-76261462 is an example of the (misguided, IMO) mindset that underlies such thinking.

FWIW the above logic is very similar to, albeit somewhat more justified than, the most common logic used to justify the efficient market theory (that because neither the speaker nor the vast majority of the market participants can repeatedly beat the market then the market must be efficient.)

(The reason it is more justified is you are poking at people who acknowledge the market will go down and yet believe they will go up - a significant divergence compared to efficient market theory which only requires someone to be repeatedly better than the overall average.)

In any case, given that I don't believe in the efficient market theory, I think there will be a few players who do beat the sector sufficiently to make money - but I would suggest that they will do so NOT by looking at traditional drug-development issues (is it a good drug, funding), but instead looking at development speed, marketing ability, savvy at developing good (saleable) clinical endpoints, ... .