Quick one for today. Someone asked earlier "What are you long/short?"
I'm currently not short any biotech stocks, although I'm considering one that I'll write on sometime this week.
Currently long:
Ariad Pharmaceuticals ($ARIA) -- sometime to come
Galectin Therapeutics ($GALT) -- detailed yesterday
I'm thinking I'll write some on ARIA sometime in the next few days (as my schedule allows); I hope to have something a little more substantive than what I put out for GALT. Both of these seem to have some underappreciated value. We'll see.
I'm also really interested in getting some short ideas in biotech out there; I'll detail why in a few days.
Happy investing!
JVS
EDIT: I had previously written that I was long SNTA, which is no longer true; I'm not even sure if it was at the time I wrote this note, because this period was shortly after I had begun to clean my portfolio of a lot of my biotech names that I was long. :-) This was due to a lot of factors, but mostly my massive overexposure to biotech names that I really had no rationale to invest in. I quickly realized that SNTA was also one of those, because I realized I didn't really know enough about the company to make a rational case for why I was invested. As such, I will not be writing anything on SNTA. -- update from 6-28-14
Juerg, I have read the OCA trial information and I don't see where it is indicated as a fibrosis treatment. In the NIH study, the endpoint was no worsening of fibrosis. The patients were all stage 1. For GALT, patients all are all stage 3 or stage 4 and secondary endpoints include secondary bio markers for fibrosis. The cohort 1 dose is not within the animal range for efficacy but it directly corelated in my opinion with the HA results from the animal study. I would therefore expect cohort 2 to be better and cohort 3 to more equal the animal study. I also don't think IV is an issue for stage 3 or 4 fibrosis patients. Any method of delivery to treat end stage patients will be economically viable. All IMO
ReplyDeleteRight, I agree that IV isn't going to be a deal-breaker; it's my opinion though that an oral delivery will always be preferred and a little more (excuse the pun) palatable.
DeleteAlso Anon, to your point on OCA and fibrosis: you are correct, there was no worsening fibrosis, and the endpoint was improvement in NAFLD score (I think). I'm not sure of the epidemiology of NAFLD vs later stage fibrosis patients, but I would assume that there would be a lot more early stage NAFLD than late stage fibrosis, thus giving OCA a much larger treatment population.
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