Replies to post #64975 on Biotech Values

[jbog]

Zip,,,,,,

I'm guessing the Elan shorts, after earning $12 billion dollar in the the last week from Elan now have the power to bury that stock.

When they lose interest then it's time to re-enter.

[DewDiligence]

>The T franchise is now burdened with the risk that sales will be discontinued. Pulling the drug could happen any time.<

The salient point, IMO, is that Tysabri will not reach the stated goal of 100,000 patients in 2010 and it probably won’t even come close.

Whether Ty would have reached this goal in any case was debatable, but now the chances of its doing so are virtually nil.

[DewDiligence]

ELN/BIIB – Lehman has cut the projected 2009 Tysabri growth rate by 2/3. Instead of 400 net new patients per week, they now expect only 140:

http://siliconinvestor.advfn.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=24818487


Let’s talk biotech!
“The efficient-market hypothesis may be
the foremost piece of B.S. ever promulgated
in any area of human knowledge!”

[DewDiligence]

Tysabri Forecasts Are Unrealistic, Say Analysts

http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2008/08/analysts_dampen.html

›By Todd Wallack
August 5, 2008

Financial analysts are predicting the number of patients using Tysabri will fall far below Biogen Idec Inc.'s forecast, following the Cambridge biotech company's disclosure last week that two more patients using the multiple sclerosis drug contracted a potentially fatal brain disease.

In an investor note today, Deutsche Bank analyst Mark Schoenebaum said that even under his best scenario, Tysabri will only have about 75,000 patients by 2013, far short of the company's goal of 100,000 by 2010. In a more conservative scenario, Schoenebaum predicts just 56,000 patients will use the drug by 2013. And in the worst case, he said, the drug could get pulled from the market if more safety problems emerge.

Close to 32,000 patients are currently using the treatment, which has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat both multiple sclerosis and severe forms of Crohn's disease.

Still, JP Morgan analyst Geoffrey Meacham wrote in a note last week that even before the news of two new cases of the brain disease, called PML, Wall Street's forecasts for the numbers of Tysabri patients by 2010 had been half of Biogen Idec's predictions. Based on that, Meacham wrote, analysts' estimates will probably not fall dramatically further.‹