<<deep pipeline >>
Yes, but
1 One of the biggest biotechs which I knew inside was making 'non-rational' pipeline decisions with an eye to Wall St 10 years past the stage of any firm we're talking about.
2. Surrogate markers for management competence need to be validated before one should pay a premium for them!
3. The flexibility to surrender an asset as Zymo was just forced to do by its horrible stock price is not very attractive. I don't fault Zymo, but it's a darn shame they had no reasonable financial choice. So I don't envy the flexibility that has them trading at half where the stock was a year or so ago.
4. Perhaps I should have explicitly re-stated that I look at these bets as a v. small part of any sane person's portfolio. I don't think one needs the dev-stage biotech to do the diversifying for one.
Separately, re Zymo, which I've hung onto btw, I do wonder if they are doing the right thing in investing so heavily in ramping up Recothrom. It was always the least impressive of their products in terms of upside. Now it is not helping them generate cash to fund the interesting stuff, and indeed appears to have cost them the chunk of atacicept that they gave up. Wonder if they could have done / still could do a deal with, say, Bayer, to take it off their hands so they can get on with i lambda and IL 21? (There are no market synergies, are there?) I hate to see them stuck in a trench war, even with some chance of success, when the focus should be on blitzkrieg opportunities.