Late Q2 Update

Let's just update the holdings quickly. We'll use the prices as of June 30, 2006 to act as an end-of-Q2 update. Real work is getting in the way of keeping this updated.


TELK / Telik Inc. : Position opened with 806 shares purchased at $18.62 ($15007.72). With Telik closing at $16.50, the current value is $13299.00, a loss of $1708.72, or -11.4%.

OSIP : Position opened with 356 shares at $28.09 ($10000.04). With OSIP closing at $32.96, the current value is $11733.76, a gain of $1733.72, or +17.3%.

MLNM : Position opened with 983 shares at $10.17 ($9997.11). With MLNM closing at $9.97, the current value is $9800.51, a loss of $196.60, or -2.0%.

GTCB : Position opened with 2873 shares at $1.74 ($4999.02). With GTCB closing at $1.52, the current value is $4366.96, a loss of $632.06, or -12.7%.

GNVC : Position opened with 1169 shares at $1.71 ($1998.99). With GNVC closing at $1.41, the current value is $1648.29, a loss of $350.70, or -17.5%.

CTIC : Position opened with 966 shares at $2.07 ($1999.62). With CTIC closing at $1.44, the current value is $1391.04, a loss of $608.58, or -30.5%.

SPDHF / Speedel : Position opened with 91 shares at $110.08 ($10017.28). SPDHF closed at 160 Swiss Francs, and with 1 Swiss Franc = ~0.82 U.S. dollars on June 30 (sorry, missed the day so i needed to read conversion from 3 month graph), the adjusted share price in USD is $131.2. The total value of the position is therefore $11939.20. Minus the opening cost of $10017.28, the position if profitable for $1921.92, or +19.2%.

Purchased 1250 shares of SGXP (SGX Pharmaceuticals Inc.) at $8.00, which is the closing price as of April 6, 2006. Cost is $10000. SGXP closed at $5.15 on June 30, 2006, for a value of $6437.5, or a loss of $3562.50 or -35.6%.

Cash position remains at $35980.22. The total stock equity is at $60616.26, and therefore total equity stands at $96596.48, a loss of $3403.52 or 3.4%. Not great, and most of it is probably attributable to a knee-jerk SGXP buy. Performance not all that great. Probably a little hasty picking up SGXP, especially in advance of what i think will be negative troxatyl news. But still, I think that one will work out in the long run, and i'm not a great timer. But part of the raison d'etre of this exercise is to learn from such mistakes.

Will probably look to establish a position in IDIX once this recent run slows down.

Probably the biggest news of the last quarter was the European reversal on GTCB's Atryn application. I won't make any seemingly retrospective comments on the suitability of this reversal. I really should have written them down on this blog at the time. Nonetheless, let's just assume we're the beneficiaries of a pleasant turn of events. GTCB will likely be a part of the portfolio for a long time.

Telik notified investors that ASSIST-3 enrollment is complete and that ASSIST-2 has hit the prespecified events for analysis. Only waiting on ASSIST-1 to hit the prespecified events.

OSIP's Tarceva is actually showing strong sales, imo. Over $100 million in Q2 of 2006 as reported by Genentech. Could be worse... just think if the CEO / Board weren't dumb enough to pick up EYET.

No comment on MLNM really. Nothing much happening. Revlimid getting onto market, but I don't think that is going to toss Velcade to the trash heap like the market thinks. MLNM will probably be in the portfolio for a while. Looks like it's a good buy at $8 per share, and their VISTA phase III trial is a lock for success, imo.

CTIC... blah... i wish we could get the pixantrone news and i could stop watching CTIC.

GNVC is a tough one... I'm tempted to sell because the phase III pancreatic trial has been set up with a nearly impossible efficacy bar. I'm not a big fan. But I'm still intrigued by their vaccine program contributions, so it'll just sit here. I think greater than 70% chance that the pancreatic trial fails. This stock, as an investment, is shite.

Speedel: steady as she goes.

Absolutely no news with SGXP. Troxatyl failure a big possibility, especially with management being somewhat coy as to what really constitutes a "success" in the pivotal trial, especially with respect to what types of clinical data will solidify a registration strategy. I'm not convinced that comparisons to an established database of similar stage AML patients is going to cut it. We'll see. However, the recent approval of dasatanib shows how quickly CML drugs can show results and get approval, so SGXP is really interesting for their Novartis collaboration for CML candidates.