Replies to post #79424 on Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

More on Bruce Downey (new MNTA director):

This is what I posted on this board about Bruce Downey in Nov 2008 (#msg-33375154):

I’m sorry to see Bruce Downey, CEO of Barr Labs, head off into the sunset. No one I know of has been as consistently informative to investors about matters of general interest to drug/biotech investors.

Well, Downey hasn’t ridden off into the sunset—in addition to working as a VC, he will doubtless be an active force in helping to make MNTA all it can be.

Downey is the one who “invented” the idea of making Paragraph-IV patent challenges the centerpiece of a drug company’s business. This seems like old hat now, but it was considered a radical concept in the 1990s. Downey made the idea work by hiring the top legal minds in the field to find the chinks in the patent armor for an array of big-selling drugs.

Teva eventually copied Barr’s idea and made P-IV challenges the focal point of its business—then Teva went a step further and acquired Barr itself.

In addition to everything else he brings to MNTA, Downey has a sense of humor. This exchange (reposted from #msg-30794311) is from the 2008 CC in which Teva and Barr announced their merger:

Q from analyst: “Where will the $300M of Teva-Barr cost synergies come from?”

Bruce Downey: “A lot of it is me.” (Downey is retiring.)

:- )

[DewDiligence]

Quiz (high difficulty): What does #msg-38633640 have to do with the 1974 movie, The Towering Inferno?