this poster in the us found by maxineamillion via the blt thread has been kind enough to share his thoughts on many companies in the us and here. i recommend reading the entire comments section. this was his thoughts on the gilead's current situation-
karmaswimswami says: January 12, 2014 at 11:20 am Harold, I appreciate the compliments of you and others. I love this forum and will keep posting biotech investing ideas and comments here, especially on days when Travis posts an article pertaining to biotech or medicine. I have a close friend, a woman who is an analyst in Australia for a major firm. Any time an interesting biotech company comes along, she dissects its financials, and I suss out its science and medical relevance. I am an MD, PhD, and like to assess both whether the tech is solid and whether it is really likely to have clinical relevance and find favor with doctors. We have thought for a long time about starting a newsletter or blog, and if/when we do, I will mention it here. For the nonce, Travis has provided a great forum.
Both of us concluded months ago that Benitec is a screaming buy. For anybody who might be interested, here is a good, balanced story on it in the recentest issue of the Qantas inflight magazine: http://www.qantas.com.au/infodetail/flying/inTheAir/inflightMagazine/brightIdea.pdf We are both long on its shares, and for her, it is the first stock she has personally bought for herself in over 10 years (she has been quite the bear on Australian issues). The company’s technology is extraordinarily complex, so much so that even for me, with a molecular biology PhD, I spent a month reading about the details before I had them firmly in grasp. We have spoken with management at length, and have actually learned some very cool ancillary observations from studies of ddRNAsh in animals that haven’t yet made it to publication. They incorporated some of my suggestions into study protocols. We feel that even if the tech does not work on first try, there is no downside for the stock, as its cash flow position from licensing its tech is remarkable. It is trading on the cheap because literally no one seems to know about it. No analyst (except her) is yet officially following it. Before either of us bought shares, I read 200 very hardcore papers about its science and about competing technologies.
It is quite interesting to speculate about what is going to happen in the next few weeks with Benitec, which trades in the US as BNIKF. (Note that the ASX and American shares have no ADR relationship; they are not pegged; they trade as separate pools). My prediction is that the first HCV patients who get TT-034 and have their HCV RNA burden measured by RT-PCR 30 days later will all have decrements. Word will leak, it always does. There are many gradations of success, from bombastic to efficacious-but-needs-tweaking. But if there is any viral drop at all, and there is a 95% chance there will be, in my estimation, I see the stock going crazy. What realistically will happen? Here’s what I think. I think almighty Gilead, which has mortgaged it soul to be the dominant player in HCV (remember, it paid $11 Billion to buy Pharmasset JUST to get sofosbuvir, which hasn’t yet earned a dime) and which by some measures now has negative book value because of all its intangibles (12 company acquisitions since 1999), is going to get very interested. Gilead MUST make scads of money on sofosbuvir and ledipasvir to stay alive! Tiny Benitec is a David that could bring a Goliath to its knees because its approach could well prove to be a one-time, one-dose cure for HCV (and by extension could be used to cure HBV). Companies may go into a bidding war for Benitec, either to embrace and market its tech, or to silence the RNA silencing approach.
Benitec’s biggest American investor is Kevin Buchi, who was given a board seat. Review, if you like, Buchi’s history. He led Cephalon to extreme success and a buyout by Teva. He is known for investing lots of money on the downlow into small biotech companies that no one has ever heard of, and then having those companies flourish and succeed.
So, disruptive, transformational science that could change how medicine is practiced in the near-term, and tech that can in theory be used to treat any disease that is amenable to therapy by silencing DNA or RNA expression; this includes pain, cancer, HIV, amyloidosis, hemophilia, HCV, HBV, other viruses, and arcane problems like storage diseases (ie, ZZ-phenotype alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency). The closest competitor is Anylam, grossly overpriced, and with frankly inferior methodology. Their approach requires q2weekly injections of very high doses, and there is evidence that responsiveness fades over time. Benitec’s requires a small iv injection every 6-12 months. Can you really afford to sit on the sidelines with this coming along? 2014 will be THE year in which Benitec’s method either succeeds or fails, because it is just now, starting this month, getting its first-ever trials in humans. Who knows… maybe we can even persuade Trader Vic to take a long position.
