Quarterly Update

So let's see what we have...

MLNM has put out a tender offer for Anormed. The total cost would be 515 million. Anormed, by my estimation, has about 30 million or so in cash, and a couple of upcoming fixed milestones that will net it a few million more. So in effect, this is a buyout at just a bit under 500 million.

Anormed's lead molecule aims to mobilize stem cells, which are often used in the transplant setting for patients with multiple myeloma and NHL. In theory, Anormed's drug mozobil increases the number of stem cells that would be harvested from a patient at every round, either facilitating stem cell collection and / or allowing total collected stem cells to hit the optimum range (5 - 6 million if I recall correctly). I'd crossed paths with Anormed stock before and wasn't too compelled, particularly because stem cell collection, on average, isn't problematic. I had read that roughly 20% of patients have an inadequate / unacceptable stem cell collection, so a drug that treats 20% of a small population wouldn't be particularly compelling from my point of view. The catch is whether MLNM executes on their spin and can actually entice docs to use mozobil to increase the chances of an optimal stem cell collection and / or decrease the number of apheresis procedures required to collect the target number.

If the phase II results are recapitulated in the two phase III trials currently running (don't we always say that?), the path to approval should be relatively straightforward since Anormed has received SPAs from the FDA.

I'm not overly negative about the transaction, but do have concerns that it will use up most of MLNM's 600+ million in cash, forcing them to re-enter the markets to raise cash. I could have done without that aspect.


Telik has announced that Assist-1 has hit its trigger, so expect fireworks from Telik in 4-8 weeks. Been a long time coming.


Prices as of September 30th:

TELK currently at $17.79. We had 806 shares for a total of $14,338.74, a current loss of $668.98 or -4.46%.

MLNM currently at $9.94. We had 983 shares for a total of $9,771.02, a current loss of $226.09 or -2.26%.


GTCB currently at $1.24. We had 2873 shares for a total of $3,562.52, a current loss of -$1,436.50 or -28.74%.

GNVC currently at $1.1264. We had 1169 shares for a total of $1,316.76, a current loss of -$682.23 or -34.13%.

CTIC currently at $1.71. We had 966 for a total of $1,651.86, a current loss of -$347.76 or -17.39%.

SPDHF: We had 91 shares which are currently trading at 183.40 swiss francs or, at an exchange rate of 0.79987, 146.70 USD per share. The total investment value is currently for a total of $13349.70. Total cost was $10017.28, so a current profit of $3332.42, or +33.3%.

SGXP closed at $2.58. We had 1250 shares for a total of $3,225.00, a current loss of -$6,775.00 or -67.75%.

Current Cash Balance: $49,472.62

Total Portfolio value is $47215.60 in stock, plus the cash, is a total of $96,688.22, a loss of around 3.3% so far this year. Obviously not great, but not horrendous as well. It is also largely as a result of the SGXP purchase... can we do pro forma performance :-)