Vertex Pharmaceuticals is a rising star - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[sovantis]

Thursday July 27, 12:50 pm Eastern Time
worldlyinvestor.com Sector of the Day
Stock Split Could Double Your Pleasure
By Nadine Wong, Biotech Stocks Columnist

Vertex Pharmaceuticals is a rising star -- especially after its upcoming stock split.


I`ve always had an affinity for companies who are going to split their stocks. Splits don`t really make the stock less or more valuable. Splits are just playing upon the emotions, the psyche of investors -- nothing more, nothing less.

This month, several biotech companies have made two-for-one stock split announcements: Protein Design (Nasdaq:PDLI - news), Incyte Genomics (Nasdaq:INCY - news), COR Therapeutics (Nasdaq:CORR - news), Affymetrix (Nasdaq:AFFX - news) and Vertex Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq:VRTX - news).

All the companies have been mentioned in past columns, except for Vertex. I`m picking this company not just because its plans to split in August, but the company also has decent fundamentals. This company has the making of becoming a rising star and investors should take a serious look at it especially after the split.

Trend-Spotting in Biotechs
I like to look for trends. Investing by trends is one of my strategies for making money on biotech stocks. From what I have always noticed about splits, once the splits happens, the stock price usually drops as the excitement winds down. Then the share price picks up again, provided there are catalysts to ignite the momentum of the share price.

Take the case of Vertex, which has the potential to fit that trend.

Vertex develops small molecule therapeutics. Its first and only drug on the market is an anti-HIV protease inhibitor, Agenerase, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in April 1999. Sales have not been spectacular, but progress is being made.

In the third quarter, Agenerase is expected to get European approval. Meanwhile, in the fourth quarter, VX-175, a second-generation (which usually implies improved) amprenavir formulation (an anti-HIV protease inhibitor), is scheduled to enter Phase III testing.

The drug for the treatment of HIV infection has been shown to be bio-equivalent to Agenerase in Phase I testing and was also shown to be well tolerated and have anti-viral activity in Phase II testing. The dosing is anticipated to be three capsules twice daily as compared with eight Agenerase capsules administered twice daily. Agenerase`s dosing regimen has proven to be an impediment to widespread adoption, but VX-175 is more user-friendly.

Building a Broad Pipeline
Beyond Agenerase, Vertex has built a broad pipeline of drug candidates for treatment of cancer, inflammation, autoimmune diseases, hepatitis C and neurological diseases. In addition, Vertex anticipates that nine new drug candidates could enter clinical testing before the end of 2001 that span a spectrum of diseases from autoimmune to infectious disease. As a result, Vertex will have a full and rich product pipeline.

But Vertex doesn`t stop there. The company plans to position itself in the post-genomics era. Vertex` strategy, chemogenomics, which is using structural information for a particular protein, may be useful in discovering information about other proteins in similar ``families.`` The benefit of such an approach is that it reduces the time required to devise the precise three-dimensional structure of all proteins of interest for possible therapeutic development.

Vertex` move to participate in the outpouring of information from the genome-sequencing efforts may cause the stock to take on trading characteristics more suited to genomics companies.

The biotech sector is currently quite healthy after some very impressive gains this year, but trying to find an undervalued company with good science is no easy task. You`ve just got to find the trends worth riding on, as well as the one that has the greatest probability of actually achieving its goal. Vertex has the reputation of having good science, and I view it as a long-term play.

Nadine Wong is editor and publisher of the BioTech Sage Report, at www.biotechnav.com, the leading biotech investment newsletter in the nation. Her weekly column looks at the hottest stocks in the biotech sector. She holds no positions in any of the stocks mentioned in this column. Positions can change at any time.

[Alibabus]

[Lemming-Töter]

VERTEX fällt und fällt !!!!!

Kurs (heute) : 106,94 $ !!!! (NASDAQ)

[G.Freeman]

@Lemming-Töte

Sei Du bloß ruhig. Deine Meinung über Vertex will eh keiner mehr wissen!!!!!!!!!!!!!