MYGN, the Next AMGN

[NY4Ever]

08-Mar-2006
3:50 PM PST Fifth Annual JMP Securities Research Conference
Event type: Corporate/Financial Presentation
Presenter: Gregory C. Critchfield, M.D., President of Myriad Genetics Laboratories, Inc.
Location: The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco, CA

[NY4Ever]

Word of caution. Continue to accumulate but use limit orders. Very thin stock and the specialists will kill you if you place market orders in excess of 500 shares.

[Websman]

I soaking in all of your valuable advice NY4ever. Thanks for everything!

[NY4Ever]

AMGN only had around 40 million shares when I first got involved. It now has 1,234,320,000 shares. Just a bit of trivia.

[Tatnic]

Bargain?

Stock at 25.83 as of 2:55. A bargain. Still the stock of the week.

How do you define bargain in a biotech? Do you mean by stock price or potential down the road? All I can think of is that guy on EI who bet the ranch on VPHM, remember him? That particular stock looks terrible now although it could go either way at this point. He was so passionate about that company's prospects...I'd be interested to see how he feels about it now.

ps...MYGN does indeed have a powerfully strong chart, but so did VPHM which at one point traded over 60% above it's 40 week.

[NY4Ever]

How do you define bargain in a biotech? Do you mean by stock price or potential down the road? >>

A bargain in any stock, not just a biotech, is when the reward is ten times greater than the risk. This was true of Haloid Xerox at 28 in 1959, Dell in April 1998, Amgn in 1988, Syntex in 1963 and many many more. Right now I equate MYGN with AMGN when they both had only 40 million shares outstanding and AMGN hadn't as yet had one drug approved.

[NY4Ever]

Very, very smart buyer all day today in this stock. Very impressive.

[RL]

I'm In looking for a good move up

[NY4Ever]

March 10

Firm gambles on Alzheimer's drug
Paul Elias

Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — It’s tragedy enough that Pat Williams’ mother has Alzheimer’s disease. But Williams is also terrified because her chances of inheriting the disease are much better than average.

So, Williams eagerly enrolled her 90-year-old mother last year in a massive, 1,600-patient, 18-month clinical trial testing an experimental drug made by the biotechnology company Myriad Genetics Inc. The drug, called Flurizan, slowed the mind-robbing disease in some of the 128 patients with mild Alzheimer’s participating in a smaller test.

Based on those results, the company has gambled millions of research dollars on the largest-ever Alzheimer’s drug trial. It aims to win an intense, international race among several biotech companies to find the first effective treatment for the 4.5 million Americans who suffer from the disease.

Myriad’s drug wasn’t effective for patients with moderate forms of the disease, so the company is targeting patients who have just been diagnosed. Scientists are also using the latest in brain imaging and genetic technology to develop tests to find people like Williams who have above-average chances of coming down with Alzheimer’s.

“I’m hoping they will have a miracle pill so that I won’t contract it,” said Williams, who lives in Boston.

Analysts predict the market for an Alzheimer’s drug could reach $4 billion annually by 2013 and success for Myriad would lift the company’s fortunes considerably. The Salt Lake City company is now best known for drilling deep into the Mormon community’s detailed genetic history to develop a popular breast cancer test.

At least two other companies are hot on Myriad’s tail.

Neurochem Inc., a Quebec company, has enrolled about 1,000 patients in its late-stage human test; and Ireland-based Elan Pharmaceuticals is almost as far in development with its own candidate.

“I want somebody to win this,” said Dr. Bill Thies, scientific director of the nonprofit Alzheimer’s Association. “I don’t particularly care if it’s Myriad or one of its competitors.”

All three are attempting to block production of the plaque-causing protein beta-amyloid. While the exact cause of Alzheimer’s remains a mystery, most researchers think a buildup of the protein in the brain is what leads to the disease.

Thies said results of the companies’ smaller human trials essentially showed they were safe and weren’t enough to make firm predictions about how effective they will be. But he said Myriad’s Flurizan has “some elements that look really positive.”

What is known is that the immune system of a healthy person gets rid of most of the amyloid. But something happens in Alzheimer’s patients that leads to a deadly amyloid buildup that coats and then kills brain cells.

Myriad is using an old class of anti-inflammatory drugs that includes the painkiller ibuprofen to prevent the buildup.

The company initially purchased commercial rights to Flurizan from its creators at Loma Linda University, near San Bernardino, because of its promise for fighting cancer. But it soon became clear in experiments with mice that the drug was also effective for Alzheimer’s as Myriad scientists made key tweaks to the drugs. The company continues to research Flurizan’s use in fighting prostate cancer.

“There is a feeling within the Alzheimer’s field that if you limit amyloid accumulation you will change the course of the disease,” Thies said.

The three drugs now approved in the United States for the disease temporarily alleviate Alzheimer’s symptoms, rather than treating them

Doctors are hopeful that experimental drugs like Flurizan can slow the march of Alzheimer’s, which is expected to claim a staggering 14 million in the United States by 2050 if no advances are made, according to Thies.

Myriad hustled Flurizan, which is a modified arthritis drug that is more than 20 years old, into final testing last year after the positive results of the smaller test.

If it succeeds, it will most likely spark interest in other anti-inflammatory drugs, including controversial painkillers like Merck’s Vioxx, which was pulled from the market in 2004 after it appeared likely to increase the risk of heart disease.

“These drugs are interesting and are real harbingers of a new class of Alzheimer’s medication,” said Dr. Robert C. Green, associate director of Boston University School of Medicine’s Alzheimer’s Disease Center.

Green is treating Williams’ mother and leading Myriad’s trial. Data from the trial will probably be released sometime next year and the drug could be on the market by 2009, Myriad said.

Alzheimer’s is a considerable drain on the health care system because of the round-the-clock care the millions of patients require. Some estimates of the disease’s cost rise to $100 billion annually when caretaker costs and time are considered.

Williams’ mother, for instance, pays about $500 a month to attend an adult day center while Williams works as a legal secretary. If her disease progresses any more, she may have to go live in a nursing home.

Because of the typical design of such drug trials, Williams, and her mother Rose Turner, don’t know whether they’re receiving Myriad’s Flurizan or a dummy pill. Williams said it would be nice if her mother was receiving the drug, but they’re still proud to be in the study even if they’re receiving the placebo. That’s because Williams and millions of others are desperate for even a modicum of relief.

“If it’s going to help people with Alzheimer’s, then we’ve accomplished something special,” Williams, 53, said. “My mom right now is my new child.”

[NY4Ever]

Another good day with smart buying. Just as yesterday the buyer was in at 26.05 most of the day, today he was in all afternoon with a 26.25 bid. In the final 10 minutes he moved the stock higher to close near its high for the day and only 7 cents short of its 52 week high. As for the general market my comments are as follows: At 3:15 the Dow was up 64, the Nasdaq up 3.98 and the S & P up 5.42. When I was on Wall Street we used to call the final 45 minutes of action up to the painters. This was called painting the tape and that is exactly what we got today -- making the market look better than it really is by closing it strong.

[NY4Ever]

Press Release Source: Myriad Genetics, Inc.


Myriad Genetics' Follow-on Study of Flurizan Demonstrates Continued Benefit in Alzheimer's Disease
Sunday March 12, 9:30 am ET
Flurizan Continues to Slow Decline in Cognition, Behavior and Daily Activities Through 21 Months


SALT LAKE CITY, March 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Myriad Genetics, Inc. (Nasdaq: MYGN - News; www.myriad.com) announced today that data from its Phase 2 follow-on study of Flurizan(TM) in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease is being presented at the 19th annual meeting of the American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry. The data suggest that study participants on 800 mg BID of Flurizan continued to demonstrate increasing benefit through month 21 in the area of cognition and memory loss and that they maintained more of their global function and activities of daily living than those on 400 mg BID of Flurizan or than the projected placebo. Results of the Phase 2 study and a summary of the 9-months of follow-on data were presented by Daniel Christensen, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Clinical Professor of Neurology and Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology at the University Neuropsychiatric Institute, Salt Lake City, Utah

[Adam]

Thank you for the informing post. I entered my option position a week or two ago after reading many of your posts. Currently I'm sitting on 39% profit and expirations in January. Obviously there's plenty of time left to sell and reenter. Will it hold the gap? Just your opinion, I know your trading objectives and that question may not be much intrest to you.

[NY4Ever]

. Will it hold the gap? Just your opinion, I know your trading objectives and that question may not be much intrest to you.>>

MYGN traded as high as 32 pre-market yesterday but ran into a lot of selling all day right from the opening. It could very easily close its gap around the 26.45 level, but that would just be a buying opportunity. I am not trading this stock.

[NY4Ever]

Company Symbol Brokerage Firm Reiterated Rating: Target
Myriad Genetics MYGN First Albany Buy

[NY4Ever]

First Albany target raised from 29 to 32.