Response Biomedical - a featured webcast from Rodman & Renshaw's Conference
2008-11-20 22:06:26
Here is just one of the webcast's from last week's Rodman & Renshaw Conference, an enormous - and enormously successful - investor event with over 500 companies. Click here to listen.
Rodman has historically specialized in Life Sciences, and this is really interesting presentation from Reponse Biomedical, a small Canadian firm focusing on Cardiac disease and Infectious diseases.
This is a company we interviewed back in March in TWST too - you can read the interview here.
Testosterone Tests Effective
2008-11-20 18:23:45
As part of our biotechnology special focus this week, TWST did an interview with the Stephen Simes, president and CEO of BioSante Pharmaceuticals (BPAX) - a speciality pharmaceutical company focusing specifically on female sexual health. The company received good news last week, when a study was published on the effectiveness of testosterone in treating female sexual health in postmenopausal women. The study claimed that testosterone had modest but meaningful results of patients. BioSante is currently on Phase III trials of LibiGel- a testosterone based gel for the treatment of HSDD (hypoactive sexual desire disorder) in menopausal and postmenopausal women. The study is a positive step for them towards gaining FDA approval. For our full interview with CEO Stephen Simes- including a complete overview of the company and its outlook for the future, click here. To learn more about LipiGel and the above mentioned study click here.
Big Bonus - Yes, Please
2008-11-20 12:49:32
Interesting article in the NY Times today about the impact of large bonuses on performance. Conclusion of psyche tests - for complex cognitive tasks large bonuses led to no improvement in performance versus smaller bonuses. Worse - it showed inferior performance. Hypothesis - stress induced by the higher expectations led to lower performance.
Of course this leads to questions about executive pay - at the C level, and at investment banks. According to the article, its conclusions were immediately challenged by banking executives when referring to their own firms. Duh! Any senior executive is going to challenge anything that would suggest he or she is overpaid. The executive pay issue is exactly the same as that faced in baseball. A-Rod performs no better now he is paid $30m per year, than when he was in Seattle. The reason senior banking executives at bulge bracket banks are paid so handsomely is that they have convinced their bosses that they are rare and special talents. Their bosses are easily convinced, because they are generally poor people managers, and because they are using the same arguments themselves to their boss. Boards of directors bring in compensation consultants to assess fair pay for the top guys. These consultants are like house appraisers - easily replaced if they provide the wrong answer. The reason executives are so highly paid, is that they have successfully framed the market environment for their skills. Scott Boras on one side, with no Theo Epstein on the other. How have sports teams countered competitive inflation in salaries? Generally not well. Salary caps - how about that NASD? Deep farm systems. Long terms contracts. Depth in every position is the best hedge.
When did it all start?
2008-11-19 18:04:10
Several times a year, we speak with analyst Thomas Au of Pittsford Venture Group about the overall state of the market, and pressing questions about the economy at present. One pressing question that keeps recurring is at what point did the market begin to move towards the current economic crisis. When did the market become overpriced, paving the way for current market conditions? Mr. Au has a unique perspective on this question:Mr. Au: From the end of 1991 basically until two months ago, the actual value of the Dow was way over the investment value of the Dow and when I say way over, I mean by more than 50%. The Dow was overvalued for a period of some 17 years, basically a whole generation. It's still overvalued relative to the investment value of the Dow, but as of today it's less than 50% overvalued, which is to say it's within a normal valuation range and two months ago, it was not. The reason was we just won a major war, a war that in my opinion was fought to keep oil prices low not forever, but let's say for a decade. We had defeated the bogeyman of the world, the man named Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Our greatest geopolitical rival, the Soviet Union, also collapsed or fell apart in the same year. So we were then the world's superpower, and basically things were as good as they were possibly going to get globally for the United States in my lifetime. Today in the year 2008, we have the exact opposite conditions. We now have a bipolar world geopolitically with the rise of China (in fact, China has a much larger trade surplus and more US dollar reserves than we have ourselves); we have high oil prices that maybe are off the recent peaks of $147 a barrel, but high by historical standards; and we're no longer the world's hero for being in Iraq - quite the opposite.For the full interview with Mr. Au, including a complete economic overview, and outlook for the future, click here.
Off the Record: Biotechnology
2008-11-18 16:28:48
Continuing with our special focus this week on Biotechnology, we spoke to analysts and CEOs from across the sector to tell us their favorite biotech picks in this turbulent economic time:- Array BioPharma Inc. (ARRY)- "I really like the guys at Array. I've known them from the get go, from the start of the company, and it is one of the best management teams, in my view, on the Street."
- Genentech, Inc. (DNA)- "I'll say it's Genentech, because they've maintained a balance of innovation in an innovative environment they've balanced innovation with the business of pharmaceuticals. And if they're smart, they'll maintain that atmosphere, otherwise it will then roll over into a full pharma environment and strategy, which has not been as productive for new drugs in the biotech industry."
- Halozyme (HALO)- "When you get to the smaller ones, of which there are thousands, I don't know that there are that many impressive management teams. I have been impressed, however, with a group in San Diego the management team at Halozyme. I think they've done a very nice job of taking a company and leveraging its assets and doing all the right things."