Replies to post #6350 on Biotech Values

[rkrw]

<<You should be, IMHO>>

I'm not. I don't own the stock.

I don't see any reason for me to question their honesty. It's in their registration docs as being 1-4%, so if they lied, then they may have an sec criminal suit on their hands. Further, the underwriters were reputable.

<<I admit that my initial DD on SNMX has been cursory, but I don’t like what I see. I think Ant’s comparison of SNMX to the genomics companies circa 1999-2000 may be on target. If further DD by any of us shows my initial assessment to be wrong, I’ll be happy to reconsider.>>

Big difference is $200M or so market cap and modest burn rate versus $2B, no approved products in sight and spending like no tomorrow.

One positive is partners reupping and expanding, which is usually a good sign.

I think it's an interesting business, But I have no feel for whether it will be sucessful. As far as being successful, to state the obvious they need to get an enhancer approved (probably not hard) and broadly used (hard).

[AlohaDan]

The contracts that SNMX has forged are for niche rather than mainstream products, where the food companies’ margins may be considerably higher. The bad side of this, of course, is that the sales base on which royalties are calculated will be small.

Frozen soups they mentioned would seem to fit the above.

Coffee as with the recent Nestle agreement, OTHO would be mainstream. As would an additional application of the frozen soup additive (MSG replacement/reduction). The company made a point that they retained rights to product use in other apps. So while frozen soups would be niche, MSG subsitute would be broad.

I've e-mailed some industrial rag editors on this royalty range figure. If you find something like "Food additives Today" I'd suggest others try to elcit an opinion also.

BTW from the below site the industry seems quite large ~$8 billion US alone and growing.

http://www.leffingwell.com/top_10.htm

There seems to be room for a new competitor if GRAS acceptance is granted. That might be a buy in decison point as it seems to me to be the largest potential negative.

Anyway as I first asked, keep throwing your negs out there. If I can't trump you/put it lower than my own list , then I know there may be a major problem I've overlooked.

[rkrw]

In light of your enjoyment of "timed" news flow, how about supg pulling the orathecin nda the same day the fda accepts the dacogen nda filing?

Press Release Source: SuperGen, Inc.


SuperGen Announces Withdrawal of Orathecin(TM) NDA
Monday January 3, 7:30 am ET


Press Release Source: MGI PHARMA


Dacogen NDA Accepted for Filing by FDA
Monday January 3, 8:00 am ET


MINNEAPOLIS & DUBLIN, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 3, 2005--MGI PHARMA, INC. (Nasdaq:MOGN - News) and SuperGen, Inc. (Nasdaq:SUPG - News) today announced that the New Drug Application (NDA) for Dacogen(TM) (decitabine) for injection was accepted for filing by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).