Still EXEL-lent
Well, as I had been mentioning I might do for a week or two, I bought some more EXEL today. I had been assuming the earnings release would be a non-event, as it was, and that I would be able to buy at roughly the same price anytime prior to their release of data next week on a few of their phase 1 compounds ... oops.
That turned out not to be the case, as the company strongly implied in their conference call that there would be good news in the preliminary trial results we'll see next week. That, I imagine, is the reason why I had to pay almost 10% more than I could have paid last week for my shares. Still, I'm happy with a long-term hold of EXEL at this price.
Bought more EXEL today, November 7, at $8.66. That brings my average cost for my EXEL holdings to roughly $8.11, and I now own what I consider a full position for a risky biotech play like this one.
I last wrote at length about Exelisis back when they did a round of conference calls, including one at the Banc of America conference (my writeup of that call is linked here). There really isn't any news out since that writeup, but there is clearly a feeling in the air that something is coming. That feeling was fed by the earnings call in which the upcoming data release was mentioned several times -- one has to imagine that they wouldn't emphasize that preliminary data release so much unless the data was going to be in some way pretty significant.
And since these are all cancer drugs, significant performance in phase 1 trials might well move the market. I can't say whether or not we've already had that move, or whether the news will be enough to even support this recent post-earnings share price performance. But I do think that this company's deep pipeline and excellent (and creative) financing will move them into the big leagues of biotech eventually. It may be with the three drugs we'll hear something about next week, or it may be one of the other eight compounds in trials or some of the other projects that are still in the clinic. But the odds favor something successful for a company with this scientific track record and reputation, and something successful against cancer would be big news, as we have seen with all the recent biggies from Genentech, Imclone, and others.
So I'll be waiting along with the rest of you to see what the news is, and hoping that the CEO didn't lead the market to expect too much (these are, after all, still phase 1 drugs -- Vertex excepting (and VRTX is, by the way, now up 100% for me -- joining Google as the only ones with that distinction in my current portfolio), we shouldn't see those causing dramatic stock advances very often). I've grown to really like this company's management, and everyone loves their pipeline -- soon we'll have a better idea of whether or not those feelings are misplaced.
That turned out not to be the case, as the company strongly implied in their conference call that there would be good news in the preliminary trial results we'll see next week. That, I imagine, is the reason why I had to pay almost 10% more than I could have paid last week for my shares. Still, I'm happy with a long-term hold of EXEL at this price.
Bought more EXEL today, November 7, at $8.66. That brings my average cost for my EXEL holdings to roughly $8.11, and I now own what I consider a full position for a risky biotech play like this one.
I last wrote at length about Exelisis back when they did a round of conference calls, including one at the Banc of America conference (my writeup of that call is linked here). There really isn't any news out since that writeup, but there is clearly a feeling in the air that something is coming. That feeling was fed by the earnings call in which the upcoming data release was mentioned several times -- one has to imagine that they wouldn't emphasize that preliminary data release so much unless the data was going to be in some way pretty significant.
And since these are all cancer drugs, significant performance in phase 1 trials might well move the market. I can't say whether or not we've already had that move, or whether the news will be enough to even support this recent post-earnings share price performance. But I do think that this company's deep pipeline and excellent (and creative) financing will move them into the big leagues of biotech eventually. It may be with the three drugs we'll hear something about next week, or it may be one of the other eight compounds in trials or some of the other projects that are still in the clinic. But the odds favor something successful for a company with this scientific track record and reputation, and something successful against cancer would be big news, as we have seen with all the recent biggies from Genentech, Imclone, and others.
So I'll be waiting along with the rest of you to see what the news is, and hoping that the CEO didn't lead the market to expect too much (these are, after all, still phase 1 drugs -- Vertex excepting (and VRTX is, by the way, now up 100% for me -- joining Google as the only ones with that distinction in my current portfolio), we shouldn't see those causing dramatic stock advances very often). I've grown to really like this company's management, and everyone loves their pipeline -- soon we'll have a better idea of whether or not those feelings are misplaced.
This article posted by One Guy @ 11/07/2005 02:58:00 PM 0 comments
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