Replies to post #66793 on Biotech Values

[ghmm]

Feuerstein:

He seems pretty good when it is negative (though I differ with him on InterMune but his attacks are more pro Vertex). When he is talking about favorable outcomes his record seems no better then average. I seem to recall a few can't misses in Alheimer's and lets not forget Telik.

I think maybe David Miller (perhaps someone else) said about shorting biotechs before trial results on a whole would be profitable and that seems to be my observation too. So one could argue Feuerstein is good at the easy stuff and not so good at the more difficult.

[DewDiligence]

Micro et al re Feuerstein:

A lot of animosity toward Feuerstein goes back to his call on IMCL in late 2002. At that time, Feuerstein wrote an article for thestreet.com alleging that Merck KGaA’s Erbitux trial in third-line CRC had failed and hence the FDA would almost certainly reject IMCL’s planned resubmission of the Erbitux BLA that was famously rejected in late 2001.

In fact, Merck’s Erbitux trial’s was a solid success that led to Erbitux’s approval in early 2004; Feuerstein’s call in late 2002 came at almost the exact bottom for IMCL shares. Given Feuerstein’s impressive rolodex and the fact that Feuerstein himself worked at a hedge fund for a time, it was widely believed by posters on message boards that Feuerstein’s 2002 call was disinformation to allow the hedgies to cover their IMCL shorts and go long.

Was there ever any proof of this? No, of course not. Was it a plausible hypothesis? I think it was.

Largely because of this episode, there has always been a smidgeon of doubt in my mind about an ulterior motive whenever I read anything penned by Feuerstein.